RMHG in Ontario_january 20_2010

The High German of Russian Mennonites in Ontario
by
Nikolai Penner
A thesis
presented to the University of Waterloo
in fulfillment of the
thesis requirement for the degree of
Doctor of Philosophy
in
German
Waterloo, Ontario, Canada, 2009
© Nikolai Penner 2009
Author’s Declaration
I hereby declare that I am the sole author of this thesis. This is a true copy of the thesis,
including any required final revisions, as accepted by examiners. I understand that my
thesis may be made electronically available to the public.
ii
Abstract
The main focus of this study is the High German language spoken by Russian
Mennonites, one of the many groups of German-speaking immigrants in Canada.
Although the primary language of most Russian Mennonites is a Low German variety
called Plautdietsch, High German has been widely used in Russian Mennonite
communities since the end of the eighteenth century and is perceived as one of their
mother tongues.
The primary objectives of the study are to investigate: 1) when, with whom, and
for what purposes the major languages of Russian Mennonites were used by the members
of the second and third migration waves (mid 1920s and 1940-50s respectively) and how
the situation has changed today; 2) if there are any differences in spoken High German
between representatives of the two groups and what these differences can be attributed to;
3) to what extent the High German of the subjects corresponds to the Standard High
German. The primary thesis of this project is that different historical events as well as
different social and political conditions witnessed by members of these groups both in
Russia (e.g. closure of High German schools and churches in the 1920s and 1930s) and in
Canada (e.g. the transition of most Mennonite churches from High German to English)
have had a considerable influence upon and were reflected in their perception and use of
High German.
The data for the project consist of two sets of audio-recorded interviews in High
German conducted in 1976-1978 by Henry Paetkau and Stan Dueck with Russian
Mennonite immigrants of the 1920s (21 interviews), and by the author of this project in
the spring of 2007 with representatives of the third migration wave (19 interviews). Both
iii
sets of interviews underwent textual and content analysis. Ten selected interviews have
been transcribed following the rules of the CHAT (Codes of the Human Analysis of
Transcripts) notation system and analyzed with the help of the CLAN (Computerized
Language Analysis) software.
The results of the study indicate that generally the patterns of language use by
both groups showed a number of important differences during their stay in Russia but
were found to be very similar after each group migrated to Canada. Further, no
significant differences in the use of non-standard constructions between the two groups
have been discovered and the main hypothesis of the study was not supported. Finally, it
has been determined that the variety of High German spoken by the Russian Mennonites
departs from Standard High German in a number of respects and features a variety of
non-standard constructions. While some of them can be traced back to the influence of
the English or Russian languages, many other non-standard constructions were most
likely present in the speech of Russian Mennonites long before intensive contact with
these languages began. It has been argued that some non-standard constructions were also
relatively stable in the group‟s High German and that they are a result of both languageinternal as well as language-external processes of change.
iv
Acknowledgements
First and most of all, I would like to thank my supervisor, Dr. Mathias Schulze.
After taking his course on the history of the German language, I fell in love with the
subject. It was he who first gave me the idea of doing a doctoral degree in German at the
University of Waterloo. I cannot express how deeply thankful I am to Dr. Schulze for the
countless hours he spent supervising my project, proof-reading and editing my writings
(often overnight and during weekends), and for teaching me most of what I know about
linguistics. I am thankful for the tremendous amount of support and personal advice I
received from him, and for his patience during the years I spent on this project.
I am also very thankful to my mentor, Dr. David John, who has guided me
throughout my studies. Without his personal advice and help, I would hardly be where I
am now. Dr. John also helped me significantly with the choice of topic for my
dissertation. For all this, I would like to express my wholehearted thanks.
My further thanks go to Manfred Richter, who provided me with a very valuable
feedback at the initial stage of the project, to E. and J. Dyck of Kitchener, Ontario, who
have helped me recruit most of the participants for this study, and to Dr. Zina
Gimpelevich, without whom I would probably have never become a graduate student at
the University of Waterloo.
I also would like to give special thanks to my wife, who supported and
encouraged me throughout the project, and to my relatives Paul and Marie Penner, Paul
and Dolores Penner, and Agnes Samson, who made it possible for me to live and study in
Canada.
v
Last but not least, I would like to thank my father for getting me interested in
linguistics when I was in the elementary school by explaining to me the concept of
relatedness of the Indo-European languages, and for my family‟s support during my both
undergraduate and graduate studies.
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Table of Contents
Author‟s Declaration.......…………….………………………………………...………….ii
Abstract…...………………..………………………………………………………..……iii
Acknowledgements………....…………………………………………………………….iv
Table of Contants……….……..………………………………………………….……….v
1.
INTRODUCTION ..................................................................................................... 1
1.1 General Overview ................................................................................................... 2
1.1.1
Origins of Mennonites as a Religious Movement .....................................................2
1.1.2
The Swiss and The Dutch Mennonites ......................................................................4
1.2 Existing Literature .................................................................................................. 7
1.3 Study Design, Objectives and Research Questions .............................................. 11
1.4 Chapter Outline ..................................................................................................... 12
2.
THEORETICAL BACKGROUND ....................................................................... 14
2.1 Key Terms and Definitions ................................................................................... 14
2.1.1
Dialects, Languages, and Standard Languages ..................................................... 14
2.1.2
German, High German, and Standard German ..................................................... 19
2.1.3
Low German, Plautdietsch, and Other Related Terms........................................... 24
2.2 Other Linguistic Terms ......................................................................................... 28
2.2.1
Bilingualism with and without Diglossia ................................................................ 29
2.2.2
Borrowing, Code-Switching, and Convergence...................................................... 35
2.3 Theoretical Framework ......................................................................................... 39
3.
2.3.1
Construction Grammar: Overview ......................................................................... 39
2.3.2
Advantages of the Constructional Approach ......................................................... 47
THE LINGUISTIC HISTORY OF RUSSIAN MENNONITES ......................... 50
3.1 Early Mennonites in Northern Europe .................................................................. 51
3.1.1
The Original Homeland .......................................................................................... 51
3.1.2
The Flemish and the Frisian Mennonites ............................................................... 52
3.1.3
Languages of the Early Mennonites ...................................................................... 53
3.1.4
Languages of the Northern Anabaptists before Migrating to Prussia .................. 54
3.2 Netherlandic Mennonites in Prussia ..................................................................... 55
3.2.1
Migration from the Low Lands .............................................................................. 55
vii
3.2.2
Languages of the Early Mennonites in Prussia ...................................................... 57
3.2.3
The Prussian Period: The Dutch Connection .......................................................... 58
3.2.4
Mennonites and High German in Prussia before 1800 .......................................... 61
3.2.5
On the Way to Russia ............................................................................................ 68
3.2.6
Summary of the Prussian Period............................................................................ 70
3.3 Mennonites in Russia ............................................................................................ 71
3.3.1
The Migration Process ........................................................................................... 71
3.3.2
Economic and Cultural Development .................................................................... 73
3.3.3
High German among Mennonites in Russia in the 19th century ............................ 75
3.3.4
Russian Mennonites and the Russian Language ................................................... 78
3.3.5
High German in the Early 20th Century .................................................................. 81
3.3.6
Emigration from Russia ......................................................................................... 82
3.4 Mennonites in Canada........................................................................................... 83
4.
3.4.1
The First Migration Wave ...................................................................................... 83
3.4.2
The Second Migration Wave.................................................................................. 85
3.4.3
The Third Migration Wave ..................................................................................... 86
METHODOLOGY .................................................................................................. 88
4.1 The Data ................................................................................................................ 88
4.1.1
Data Set I ............................................................................................................... 88
4.1.2
Data Set 2 .............................................................................................................. 92
4.2 Data Transcription .............................................................................................. 102
4.2.1
The Software ........................................................................................................ 102
4.2.2
Organisation of the Transcripts ........................................................................... 103
4.2.3
Transcribing Elements from Other Languages .................................................... 104
4.2.4
Utterances ........................................................................................................... 106
4.2.5
Punctuation Marks and Other Symbols ............................................................... 107
4.2.6
Phenomena Not Indicated in the Transcriptions ................................................. 109
4.2.7
Linkage with the Recordings ................................................................................ 109
4.3 Coding the Data .................................................................................................. 110
4.3.1
The Methodological Framework.......................................................................... 110
4.3.2
Sets of Categories and the Tier System in CHAT .................................................. 112
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4.3.3
The Code System for Grammatical Phenomena .................................................. 115
4.4 Structural Analysis of the Data ........................................................................... 117
4.4.1
Words of Caution and Using the Duden .............................................................. 117
4.4.2
Deviations in Case ................................................................................................ 119
4.4.3
Deviations by Parts of Speech .............................................................................. 121
4.4.4
Other Types of Deviations.................................................................................... 123
4.4.5
Commentaries...................................................................................................... 126
4.4.6
The Process of Analysis ........................................................................................ 127
4.5 Sociolinguistic Analysis ...................................................................................... 131
4.5.1
Categories for Sociolinguistic Analysis................................................................. 131
4.5.2
The Process of Analysis ........................................................................................ 133
4.6 Summary ............................................................................................................. 134
5.
PILOT STUDY ...................................................................................................... 136
5.1 Data Description/Content Analysis ..................................................................... 137
5.2 Structural Analysis - Constructions Contrasting with Those of SHG ................ 141
5.2.1
Case government ................................................................................................. 141
5.2.2
Verb Forms........................................................................................................... 148
5.2.3
Nominal Paradigm ............................................................................................... 151
5.2.4
Pronoun Usage .................................................................................................... 156
5.2.5
Adjectival Declension ........................................................................................... 157
5.2.6
Indefinite Article .................................................................................................. 159
5.2.7
Prepositions ......................................................................................................... 159
5.2.8
Other Types of Deviations.................................................................................... 161
5.2.9
Lexical Domain..................................................................................................... 165
5.3 Conclusion .......................................................................................................... 168
6.
SOCIOLINGUISTIC ANALYSIS ....................................................................... 170
6.1 In Russia.............................................................................................................. 171
6.1.1
The Village World ................................................................................................ 171
6.1.2
Education ............................................................................................................. 178
6.1.3
Self-identification, Patriotism and Attitudes to the State ................................... 184
6.1.4
Language Use Patterns in Russia ......................................................................... 189
ix
6.2 On the Way to Canada ........................................................................................ 211
6.3 In Canada ............................................................................................................ 214
6.3.1
Language Use among the Second Wavers .......................................................... 214
6.3.2
Language Use among the Third Wavers ............................................................. 219
6.3.3
The Shift to English as the Church Language ....................................................... 222
6.4 Summary and Conclusions ................................................................................. 226
7.
STRUCTURAL ANALYSIS ................................................................................ 228
7.1 Non-standard Constructions in Russian Mennonite High German ..................... 229
7.1.1
Case-marked Constructions ................................................................................. 230
7.1.2
Verb Constructions and Special Constructions .................................................... 245
7.1.3
Lexical/Semantic Domain .................................................................................... 254
7.2 Discussion and Explanation ................................................................................ 259
7.2.1
Variation Between the Groups ............................................................................ 259
7.2.2
Variation within the Groups ................................................................................ 261
7.2.3
Explaining the Existence of Non-standard Constructions in RMHG..................... 264
7.3. Limitations of the Study and Suggestions for Further Research ........................ 271
7.4. Conclusions ......................................................................................................... 273
REFERENCES .............................................................................................................. 277
APPENDIX .................................................................................................................... 298
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1. INTRODUCTION
Of all Christian denominations present in Canada today Mennonites are perhaps one of
the most interesting as well as culturally and linguistically diverse religious groups.
United under the name of their leader Menno Simons (1496-1561) and sharing the
fundamental principles of their faith, numerous subdivisions of this group in Canada
consciously exercise completely different lifestyles and have gone quite diverse paths
since the onset of this movement almost half a millennium ago. As a result, in SouthWestern Ontario there are ultra-conservative Old Order Mennonites who live in closed
rural communities and reject many of the recent technical innovations, the conservative
Pennsylvania Mennonites who drive black-painted cars and reject most kinds of modern
entertainment such as television, radio, dancing etc, and the progressive urbanized
Mennonites, who are allowed to drive modern cars, have prestigious jobs and attend night
clubs, bars and restaurants, and who generally have progressive and liberal views on
many aspects of modern culture. Although historically and culturally these Mennonite
groups are quite different, all of them have drawn particular attention from scholars,
including from linguists. The topic of the Mennonites‟ languages, closely intertwined
with their culture and religion, is indeed fascinating considering that each of the groups
followed a unique migration path over the course of several centuries and has come into
prolonged contact with various other languages.
1
1.1
General Overview
This dissertation deals with one of the languages used by one of the Mennonite groups
residing in Ontario. In order to avoid ambiguity, I first briefly discuss the term
„Mennonite‟ and its origin and provide a short overview of Mennonites as a religious
movement (Section 1.2). The two groups of Mennonites residing in Ontario are then
briefly discussed, and the subjects of this study as well as their language are identified
(Section 1.3). Section 2 presents an overview of the academic literature on the topic, and
Section 3 contains information on the study design, objectives, and research questions.
The chapter ends with a detailed outline of the subsequent chapters.
1.1.1 Origins of Mennonites as a Religious Movement
As already mentioned, what unites various groups of Mennonites in Canada (and all over
the world, for that matter) is their faith, which emerged in Zürich in the early decades of
the sixteenth century as a part of the radical wing of the Protestant Reformation known as
Anabaptism. Stressing adult baptism as a conscious sign of willingness to follow Jesus
Christ, recognizing the Bible as the only authority, abandoning most practices and
mediums of worship used by the Catholic Church including sacraments, rejecting any
form of warfare or violence, and refusing to swear an oath, Anabaptism became an
influential and fast-growing religious movement in sixteenth-century Switzerland.
However, this period of growth was not to last long. The Catholic church united with the
Swiss authorities in an effort to completely root out Anabaptism from its very beginnings
and condemned a tremendous number of its followers to death through most cruel means.
As a result, the growth of the movement in Switzerland was stopped and “although the
2
authorities never quite succeeded in completely strangling the movement, they did drive
it underground, and in a few years removed all possibilities of its having a large popular
following” (Smith, 1981, p. 13).
Driven out of Switzerland, Anabaptists spread their ideas across the German
border and soon good-sized congregations had been established in all the larger cities
throughout Bavaria, Baden, Württemberg, the Palatinate, Alsace, and as far north as
Thuringia and Saxony (Smith, 1981, p. 18). A large number of Anabaptist congregations
were also found in many parts of Moravia, Tyrol and Austria. However, despite its
seeming popularity, the followers of this evangelical movement suffered severe
persecution from both Protestant and Catholic authorities and within several decades
became almost extinct in the above-mentioned areas and continued to linger on only in
the most secluded corners of the southern German-speaking territories.
Eradicated as a mass movement in the South, Anabaptism slowly found its way
down the Rhine River and already in the 1530s there were many traces of it in the
Netherlands and northwestern Germany (Smith, 1981, p. 41). Here a former Catholic
priest named Menno Simons joined the new movement in 1536 and became one of the
most influential Anabaptist leaders in history (Dyck, 1993, p. 102). His followers were
first known under the name Mennists, which then referred to the peaceful northern
Anabaptist parties only. Later the name was extended to Mennonists and finally took its
current form. The meaning of the term was likewise extended and now includes the
Southern Anabaptist groups as well. Of the latter, two groups who have survived until
today are not referred to as Mennonites. These are the Hutterites, the followers of Jakob
3
Hutter, and the Amish, who received their name from their leader Jakob Amman (Smith,
1981, p. 73).
The term Mennonite is a religious epithet referring to people of any ethnic and
cultural background who accept the Mennonite faith as their own. Today one does not
need to be of a specific ethnic background, come from a certain geographical area, or
speak a certain language to be a Mennonite. In fact, most Mennonite congregations today
are attended by people of different races and cultures, all of whom can be considered
Mennonites in the religious sense. However, besides stating religious affiliation, the term
„Mennonite‟ also denotes the two above-mentioned ethno-religious groups each with
their own culture, history, and traditions.1 For the purposes of this research, I will be
using the term „Mennonite‟ in this latter narrower sense.
1.1.2 The Swiss and The Dutch Mennonites
As mentioned above, early Mennonites originally came primarily from two well-defined
areas - Switzerland and the Netherlands - and consequently, all Mennonite groups in
Canada are said to be of either Dutch or Swiss background. While the ultra-conservative
and conservative Mennonites are almost exclusively of Swiss origin, the major part of
progressive Mennonites in Canada is of Dutch background. The overwhelming majority
of the latter group are, in turn, known as the Russian Mennonites. This name refers to the
fact that most followers of Menno Simons, trying to escape severe religious persecution
in the Netherlands, settled in Prussia, which their heirs left several centuries later for the
south of the Russian Empire, where large Mennonite settlements survived until the
middle of the Second World War. Those Mennonites who stayed in Prussia until the end
1
More specific information about the name „Mennonite‟ and the last names of Russian Mennonites in
4
of World War II are known as Prussian Mennonites. Because of their origins in the
Netherlands and their prolonged stay in Prussia and Russia, this group has been called
Dutch-Prussian, Russo-Prussian, or simply Russian Mennonites.
Although today none of the progressive Mennonite churches is restricted to
people of either background, the distinction between the Swiss and the Russian
Mennonites is still maintained but is of a purely cultural nature. Thus, traditional food,
which has been reported to be “a very important part of Mennonite culture” ("Mennonite
Historical Society of Canada," Food section, para. 2) is, perhaps, the most pronounced of
these and one Mennonites take deep pride in. Swiss Mennonites are known for their
scalloped potatoes, shoofly pie and summer sausage, whereas Russian Mennonites are
said especially to favour borscht, wareniki, cabbage rolls, and zwieback.
Further, Russian Mennonites share a unique linguistic situation rather different
from that of their Swiss brothers and sisters. Originally speakers of Dutch and other local
languages used in the Low Countries (see Section 3.1.3 for more details), their forefathers
moved to Prussia in the sixteenth century. There they kept using Dutch for religious
worship but soon accepted as a communal language the Low Prussian Low German,
which is usually referred to as Plautdietsch. Almost two centuries later, High German
slowly replaced the Dutch language in the Mennonite congregations. After their move to
the Russian Empire in the late eighteenth century, it became the language of the church,
the school, and of other cultural and commercial activities as well as of periodicals and
literature (Goerzen, 1972, p. 22). Not surprisingly, Mennonites were exposed to the
Russian language during their stay in Russia and many of them attended Russian
institutions of postsecondary education and mastered Russian. Then, after about a century
5
in Russia, Mennonite migration to North America began. Therefore, at the time of their
migration to Canada, Mennonites were using High German as the official language in
schools, churches, and administration, Low German as a communal language, and the
Russian language in Russian educational and government institutions and to
communicate with the local Russian-speaking population. The Mennonite migration to
North America took place in three large waves. The first of them took place in the 1870s,
and was followed by second in the 1920s, and finally by third wave in the decades
following the end of the World War II, thus adding English to their already impressive
linguistic repertoire. In this dissertation, the languages of the second and the third wave
immigrants after half a century in Canada are analyzed and compared.
To conclude, it can be said that the linguistic background and the present
sociolinguistic situation of Russian Mennonites in Canada are quite different from those
of the other Mennonite groups. Mostly of Swiss origin, the latter migrated to the United
States of America in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, bringing a number of High
German varieties with them. With time, dialect convergence took place, and „gave birth‟
to the language used by the Swiss Mennonites, Old Order Amish, and their descendents:
Pennsylvania German, also known as „Pennsylvania Dutch‟. The Swiss Mennonite
groups do not fall within the focus of this dissertation and will not be considered further.
6
1.2
Existing Literature
The quite peculiar historical and cultural background of Russian Mennonites has aroused
keen interest among researchers and has been extensively studied by numerous scholars
at various points in time from numerous angles.2 Consequently, the linguistic situation of
Russian Mennonites throughout their history has also received much academic attention.
Thus, various languages used in the Netherlands of the sixteenth, seventeenth, and
eighteenth centuries are dealt with in detail by Frings (1944), Krogman (1957), Fromme
(1942) and Foerste (1938), whereas Fischer (1896), Grimme (1922), Mitzka (1922, 1924,
1959), and Torksdorf (1985) give accounts of the local German varieties used in East and
West Prussia of the time.
The Low German variety of Russian Mennonites has also been thoroughly studied
at different points of its history and in various geographical locations. Thus, B. H. Unruh
in his Die niederländisch-niederdeutschen Hintergründe der mennonitischen
Ostwanderungen (1955) discusses Mennonite Low German in Prussia and its connection
to the Dutch language. Unruh‟s student Johan Postma devotes a chapter in his doctoral
dissertation Das niederländische Erbe der preußisch-rußländischen Mennoniten (1959)
to the Low German language of Mennonites in Prussia. Wiens in his Niederländische
Reste in der Mundart der Mennoniten im Weichseldelta (1916), Mitzka in Die Sprache
der deutschen Mennoniten (1930), in Deutsche Mundarten (1943) and Moelleken in Die
Linguistische Heimat der rußlanddeutschen Mennoniten in Kanada und Mexiko:
Sprachliche Entwicklung und diglossische Situation (1987) also devote significant
2
For the most complete general bibliographical account of works on Mennonites until 1961 please see
Springer & Klassen (1977) and Kliewer (1970). For works published from 1946 to present please refer to
the annual Mennonite bibliography published in April issues of the journal Mennonite Life, an electronic
version of which can be found online at http://raven.bethelks.edu/mennonitelife/bibliographies/.
7
attention to the issue. Mennonite migration from the Netherlands to Prussia and their
linguistic ties with their homeland are discussed in detail in Penner & Reimer‟s
Ansiedlung mennonitischer Niederländer im Weichselmиndungsgebiet (1963) and in
Penner‟s Die ost- und westpreußischen Mennoniten (1978).
One of the first works dealing with Plautdietsch as spoken by Mennonites in
Russia is Mitzka‟s Die Mennoniten in Rußland und ihre Beziehungen zu Westpreußen
(1926). Another valuable work is a doctoral dissertation by a Russian Mennonite teacher
Jacob Quiring entitled Die Mundart von Chortitza in Süd-Rußland published in München
in 1928. In the same year another important work investigating German colonies in
Ukraine by the Russian scholar Viktor Zhirmunskii appeared in Khar‟kov (Zhirmunskii,
1928). Other works on the topic include Gerhard Wiens‟s Entlehnungen aus dem
Russischen im Niederdeutschen der Mennoniten im Rußland (1957) and Zhirmunskii‟s
Deutsche Mundartkunde (1962).
Soon after the last wave of Russian Mennonites migrated to Canada in late 1940s
and 1950s, numerous studies investigating the Plautdietsch language appeared. In less
than two decades four dissertations dealing specifically with Russian Mennonite Low
German in North America were published. Goerzen (1952) investigated the Molotschna
variety of the language, while Lehn (1957) dealt with the Rosental dialect and Dyck
(1964) described the Chortitza Low German and compared languages of three Russian
Mennonite Colonies in Western Canada. Plautdietsch spoken in the United States was
analyzed and described several years later by Buchheit (1978).
Subsequently, numerous linguistic works on Russian Mennonite Low German in
Canada appeared in print. The most prominent of these are John Thiessen‟s Studien zum
8
Wortschatz der kanadischen Mennoniten (1963), Auburger‟s Die monophtongen Vokale
des kanadischen Plautdietsch (1977), Eichhoff‟s Niederdeutsche Mundarten in
Nordamerika (1981). Also, much work on Russian Mennonite languages has been done
by Jack Thiessen (e.g. 1965, 1968, 1984, 1988) and Wolfgang Moelleken (e.g. 1967,
1972, 1992, 1996).
Further, a number of dictionaries and one speaking guide of Mennonite
Plautdietsch have been compiled. Most recent of such works are Rempel‟s „Kjenn jie
noch Plautdietsch?: a Mennonite Low German dictionary‟ (1984), Neufeld‟s
„Plautdietsch grammar: an aid to speaking, reading, and writing NetherlandicMennonite Plautdietsch‟ (2000) and Jack Thiessen‟s „Mennonite Low German
dictionary‟ (2003).
Besides, there exist a number of works that deal with Russian Mennonite Low
German as spoken in post-war Russia (e.g. Jedig, 1966; Nieuweboer, 1999), in the USA
(Buchheit, 1978, 1988; Keel, 1994; Moelleken, 1994), and in South America (Brandt,
1993; Moelleken, 1966, 1986; Scharf, 2001).
While such significant attention has been given to the Plautdietsch of Russian
Mennonites, the rather interesting question of their connection to High German and the
Mennonites‟ use of it at different points of their history has not been explored and
academic literature on this topic is extremely scarce. This is very surprising since High
German has been extensively used by this group from the eighteenth century onwards and
became an inseparable part of Russian Mennonite culture and identity. In fact, High
German was associated with Mennonite identity to such an extent that in 1919, when the
Canadian government prohibited teaching in High German in Russian Mennonite
9
schools, about one third of Russian Mennonites left Canada in order to be able to educate
their children in High German. (Thiessen, 1963, p. 28)
From the very first works on Russian Mennonite history, such as D. Epp (1888),
F. Isaak (1908) and P. M. Friesen (1911a), the issues of High German among Russian
Mennonite have not been dealt with in detail. More recent historical works, such as Urry
(2007) and well-known textbooks of Mennonite history, such as Smith (1981) and Dyck
(1993) devote much attention to various aspects of Russian Mennonite social, cultural
and religious life but contain very limited and scattered information about their use of
High German. Thus, of the tremendous body of existing studies on Russian Mennonite
history only a handful seem to devote any noticeable attention to this issue.
The rather difficult transition of Mennonite congregations in Prussia from Dutch to High
German has been discussed by Postma (1959), who gives a brief description of this
process in his above-mentioned dissertation, by Duerksen (1967), who examines histories
and church records of six major Mennonite congregations in Prussia and provides a fairly
comprehensive overview of the issue, and by Penner (1978), who examines the early
correspondence between Mennonites in Prussia and their brothers and sisters in Christ in
the Netherlands.
Of the several known attempts to describe the linguistic situation of Russian
Mennonites in Canada, most are unfortunately rather superficial and sketchy for a
linguist. In 1955 Neufeld drew attention to the problem of language maintenance and loss
of both High German and Plautdietsch among Russian Mennonites in Canada with his
article “Sprechen die Mennoniten in Kanada noch Deutsch?” A year later in
“Hochsprache und Mundart in den deutschen Sprachinseln” K. Klein provided a brief
10
account of languages used in several German enclaves, which also included a short
section on Russian Mennonites. Further in 1986 a report on a study investigating
language competence among Mennonites in Canada conducted by Driedger and
Hengstenberg appeared in Canadian Ethnic Studies. The study investigated the influence
of various factors such as social domain, Mennonite affiliation, generation, place of birth
and religious orthodoxy on their language competence and language use. Finally, Ediger
(2001) devoted significant attention to the transition from High German to English as the
language of the church among Mennonite Brethren, a sub-group of Russian Mennonites
residing in Canada.
1.3
Study Design, Objectives and Research Questions
The current study concentrates on the High German variety spoken by the Russian
Mennonites and draws on the data from two sets of audio-recorded interviews in High
German conducted in 1976-1978 by Henry Paetkau and Stan Dueck with Russian
Mennonite immigrants of the 1920s residing in Southern Ontario (twenty-one
interviews), and by the author of this project in the spring of 2007 with members of the
third migration wave (nineteen interviews). The first set of interviews is available at the
Mennonite Archives of Ontario at Conrad Grebel University College, University of
Waterloo (reference number Hist Mss.22.2.1) , and the second set will be available there
after the completion of this study.
The primary hypothesis of this project is that different historical events as well as
different social and political conditions witnessed by members of these large groups both
in Russia (e.g. closure of German churches in the 1920s and of the German schools in the
11
1930s) and in Canada (e.g. the transition of most Mennonite churches from High German
to English, which had been largely completed by 1990 (Dyck, 1993, p. 409) have had a
considerable influence upon and were/are reflected in their perception and usage of High
German.
The primary objectives of the study are to investigate: 1) if there are any
differences in spoken High German between representatives of the two groups and to
what these differences can be attributed; 2) to what extent the High German of the
interviewees corresponds to Standard High German; 3) language contact phenomena,
such as when, with whom, and for what purposes the major languages of Russian
Mennonites (High German, Plautdietsch, English, and Russian) were used by the
members of the second and third migration waves; and 4) how the situation has changed
today.
Although the analysis part of the project includes some numeric data, the major
aim of the disseration is a detailed description of the structural aspects of the
interviewees‟ High German, and no attempt at generalization of the study‟s results is
made. This dissertation is therefore a qualitative case-study.
1.4
Chapter Outline
The next chapter presents the key terms used in this study, clarifies the linguistic
terminology which will recur in the subsequent chapters and presents the theoretical basis
of this research. Chapter three retells the linguistic story of Russian Mennonites and
follows the group from their origins in the Low Countries, through the lands of Prussia
and Southern Russia up to the point when the last wave of Russian Mennonites settled in
12
Canada after the Second World War. The fourth chapter describes the data used for this
research and presents the methodology of this study. Chapter five tests the methodology
of the study and presents a detailed analysis of a selected interview from the second data
set. The sociolinguistic analysis of both sets of interviews is presented in chapter six,
whereas chapter seven looks at the linguistic aspects of the interviewees‟ High German,
examines the variation within and across both groups, and presents an attempt to explain
its existence. The dissertation closes with a conclusions section, which answers the main
research questions and summarizes the findings of the study. With the present dissertation
I intend to fill an existing gap in the scholarly research and examine the High German
used by Russian Mennonite immigrants in Canada in its diachronic context.
13
2.
THEORETICAL BACKGROUND
This chapter provides an overview of the most important linguistic terminology used in
the subsequent chapters and presents a sketch of the theoretical framework adopted for
this project. Section 2.1 deals with the terminology pertaining to languages as such and is
divided into three parts. The first part discusses and defines such terms as „dialect‟,
„language‟ and „standard language‟. The second part clarifies such terms as „German‟,
„High German‟ and „Standard German‟, whereas the third deals with the terminology
surrounding different Low German varieties in the context of Russian Mennonites.
Section 2.2 introduces the key linguistic phenomena connected with language contact,
such as bilingualism, diglossia, borrowing, code-switching, and convergence. The last
part of the chapter (Section 2.3) presents a sketch of the theoretical framework used in
this research (Construction Grammar) and discusses its advantages over other theoretical
approaches to language. The chapter closes with a brief summary and demonstrates how
its results are relevant to the project.
2.1
Key Terms and Definitions
2.1.1 Dialects, Languages, and Standard Languages
Because the primary focus of this dissertation is on an ethno-religious group which has
migrated through various countries and continents over the course of several centuries
and has been exposed to and used a wide range of languages and their varieties, I will
have to rely on such terms as „dialect‟, „language‟, and „standard language‟.
14
Determining whether a specific language variety should be considered a „dialect‟
or a „language‟ is difficult even for linguists and the difference between the two is at
times blurry. Also of all linguistic terms, „dialect‟ and „language‟ are probably most often
misconceived and are almost always surrounded by myths, stereotypes, or are simply
completely misunderstood (or misused) by both linguists and non-linguists.
One of the most popular myths states that languages can be both spoken and
written, while dialects can only be spoken. In reality, however, this distinction does not
hold true, as there exist numerous written texts in many dialects, some of which possess
relatively large bodies of literary prose, poetry, and numerous other written genres. At the
same time, many languages even in the present-day world exist only in spoken form, such
as a number of indigenous languages of the Americas, South-Eastern Asia, Australia, or
New Zealand. Another popular but erroneous claim is that only languages and not
dialects have grammars. This statement is far from being linguistically correct as all
dialects and languages without exception have grammars3, without which it most
certainly would be impossible for the speakers of the same dialect to communicate with
each other. In addition, for many varieties usually referred to as dialects, just as for many
languages, there exist descriptive grammar books depicting the usage of language
constructions by their speakers, as well as prescriptive grammars stating which forms
should be used as „correct‟ and which are to be avoided. Next, although dialects are often
considered by laymen to be subordinate varieties, or even worse, inferior or degraded
forms of a language, such judgements are erroneous as they are usually made “on the
3
Since this research adopts the Construction Grammar approach to language (Section 2.4), languages are
viewed as large hierarchical networks of overlapping constructions which present the full range of
linguistic conventions in a particular language. Grammars, in turn, are held responsible for the speaker‟s
knowledge of the full range of these conventions, “regardless of whether these conventions can be
subsumed under more general statements” (Langacker, 1987, p. 494).
15
basis of who is speaking, not on the dialect itself” (Myers-Scotton, 2006, p. 24).
Moreover, since languages themselves are “collections of their dialects” (Fromkin,
Rodman, & Hyams, 2007, p. 409), such views cannot be true logically, as they would
automatically mean the inferiority and a degraded state of all languages.
In this dissertation I adopt the view that „dialects‟ are “mutually intelligible forms
of a language that differ in systematic ways” (Fromkin, Rodman, & Hyams, 2007, p.
409). They form an integral part of a language and collectively comprise it as a whole. A
language is, therefore, an abstract linguistic construct resulting from the collection of its
dialects. Thus, the term „dialect‟ will be used synonymously to „linguistic variety‟ and
will include any linguistic sub-system that belongs to a given language.
This definition of „dialect‟ also includes the so-called „standard‟ varieties
(„standard dialects‟) which enjoy a special status within a language. Usually a standard
language is a variety that:
1. may be recognized for official purposes (or given a legal status)
2. is used in the media and literature
3. is promoted through the educational system
4. has the greatest prestige (Fox, 2005, p. 15)
Despite the higher level of prestige usually associated with them, standards “do not
necessarily have any inherent superiority over the other forms” (Fox, 2005, p. 15) and an
opinion that the standard form of a language is “its „original, uncorrupted state‟, from
which all other forms have subsequently deviated” is “a common misconception”
(Stevenson, 1997, p. 10). Now that I have identified what dialects are and in what
relationship they stand to a language, the question at which point a dialect becomes a
16
language or whether several linguistic varieties are languages or dialects of the same
language needs to be answered.
Undoubtedly, one of the criteria most frequently used to answer these questions is
that of mutual intelligibility. In other words, if speakers of two linguistic varieties can
understand each other, they are considered to speak the same language (or dialects of the
same language), and if they cannot, the varieties they speak must be two different
languages. While this criterion might indeed be helpful when talking about two distantly
related or even unrelated languages, the speakers of which cannot understand each other
without learning the other‟s language (e.g. speakers of English, Greek, and Japanese not
be able to understand each other and therefore they are considered to speak different
languages), it becomes problematic when language varieties are typologically related and
generally understandable to their speakers. For example, although speakers of Danish will
be able to understand to a certain degree their Dutch and German neighbours, just like
speakers of Polish will understand some Czech as well as some Ukrainian, hardly anyone
will refer to these linguistic varieties as „dialects‟.
Also, a quite peculiar situation occurs when political interpretations of a language
clash with the linguistic understanding of the term and several varieties of (linguistically)
the same language are called separate languages for political reasons. Such situations
gave rise to the sarcastic definition usually ascribed to Max Weinreich which says that “a
language is a dialect that has an army and a navy" (Fromkin, Rodman, & Hyams, 2007, p.
409). Perhaps one of the most recent vivid examples of such collision of the linguistic
and political usage of the term is the split of Serbo-Croatian into Serbian and Croatian,
when these two countries gained political independence in 1991, the varieties of Serbo-
17
Croatian spoken in each country became separate languages. The opposite situation –
when several linguistic varieties whose speakers cannot understand each other are for
political reasons forced under the umbrella of a single „language‟ –is also quite frequent.
For example, such is the case in China, where many varieties are not mutually
intelligible, but are nevertheless called dialects of Chinese to instil „the notion of national
identity across diverse communities‟ (Myers-Scotton, 2006, p. 22; Sihler, 2000, p. 168).
Further, the criterion of mutual comprehensibility may not always work in cases
when, for political and historical reasons, speakers of some languages (dialects) may
claim to understand another language (dialect) to a greater or a lesser extent than they
really do. An example here would be the reported asymmetrical intelligibility between the
speakers of Danish, Swedish, and Norwegian (Myers-Scotton, 2006, pp. 19-20, 23) or
between monolingual speakers of Spanish and Portuguese (Sihler, 2000, p. 166).
In addition, although many other criteria for distinguishing languages from each
other have been proposed, such as, for example, degree of similarity (Fox, 1990, p. 290),
the question of what constitutes a dialect and what a separate language cannot be
answered just by examining the linguistic forms themselves. Moreover, one might say
that the linguistic means for distinguishing languages from each other play a relatively
minor role in making such distinction compared to political, cultural, and historical
reasons. Therefore, this distinction shall not concern us here and I will be using the terms
„linguistic variety‟ interchangeably with the terms „language‟. At the same time, the term
„dialect‟ will be used to refer to any non-standard variety.
18
2.1.2 German, High German, and Standard German
As already mentioned, and as shown in chapter 3, the culture of the Russian Mennonites
was until recently closely intertwined with the „German‟ language. This term seems
rather uncontroversial at first glance, since today for the majority of people the word
„German‟ as pertaining to a language is unequivocally associated with the primary
written and spoken language of the Federal Republic of Germany and the language taught
as „German‟ at educational institutions worldwide. Thus, if someone says that he or she is
studying German or that his or her parents read newspapers or write letters in German, it
is usually quite clear what language is meant. Yet in the context of Russian Mennonites
the word „German‟ can become quite ambiguous. This becomes evident if one asks
several first-generation Russian Mennonite immigrants something about the languages
they used in the past or are using today. For example, the answer to the questions “What
is your mother tongue?”, “What language did you speak with your parents?” or “What
language did you speak at school?” will almost always be „German‟. Yet it is still unclear
which language is meant, as among Russian Mennonites the word „German‟ can refer to
two different languages (High German or Plautdietsch), which are so different that two
speakers will have considerable difficulties communicating effectively without knowing
at least some of the other‟s variety.
This ambiguity results from the fact that in the linguistic sense the term „German‟
denotes a particular group within Germanic languages - a large number of language
varieties separated from other Indo-European languages by a series of consonant changes
known as the First (Germanic) Sound Shift (e.g. Chambers & Wilkie, 1970, p. 99) or „die
germanische (erste) Lautverschiebung‟ (e.g. Schmidt et al., 1984, p. 42). Despite the
19
similar sounding name, German is not the only Germanic language, but is rather one of
many Germanic languages, which also include English, Dutch, Danish, Swedish,
Norwegian, etc. as can be seen on Figure 2-1.
Figure 2-1: Distribution of the Germanic languages in Europe (Source:
Germanic Languages, Britannica Online Encyclopedia, 2009).
Today varieties of German are spoken in areas of southern Switzerland, Austria, and
(Encyclopedia Brittanica)
northern Italy, throughout the Federal Republic of Germany, Liechtenstein, and parts of
Luxembourg, the territories of the present-day Belgium and the Netherlands. Although in
many of these countries there appears to be some sensitivity towards referring to their
languages as varieties of German, it can be attributed to the unlucky coincidence that the
name of the language spoken in these countries coincides with the name „Germany‟. In
any case, the varieties of German all the way from the south of Austria and Switzerland
to the coasts of the North and the Baltic Seas form a “continuity, with small changes
separating neighbouring dialects” which merges into the Dutch-speaking areas and is
20
known as the Dutch-German „dialect continuum‟ (Fox, 1990, p. 291; Myers-Scotton,
2006, p. 20).
Linguistically, these German varieties can be subdivided into three groups
depending on how strongly they were affected by the processes of linguistic change
known as the Second or High German Consonant Shift (Hochdeutsche or 2.
Lautverschiebung), which “began between the sixth and seventh centuries AD in the
south of the German-language region, and gradually moved northward. It changed
voiceless stops /p/, /t/, /k/ to voiceless fricatives /f/, /s/, /x/ [(ç) or [x]); and affricates /pf/,
/ts/, /kx/ and voiced stops /b/, /d/, /g/ to voiceless stops /p/, /t/, /k/” (Clyne, 1995, p. 27).
For example:
Sound change
English
Dutch
High German
pepper
peper
Pfeffer
eat
eet
essen
time
tijd
Zeit
f
p
pf
s
t
ts
k
[x]
make
maak
machen
d
[t]
day
dag
Tag
Table 2-1
Thus, the dialects in the North, which were not affected by any of these changes, are
termed Low German (Niederdeutsch) while the more southern varieties, which were fully
affected, are designated as Upper German (Oberdeutsch). Consequently, the partially21
affected varieties between these two areas became known as Middle German
(Mitteldeutsch) and are further divided into East Middle German (Ostmitteldeutsch) and
West Middle German (Westmitteldeutsch). The fully and partially affected groups of
dialects are collectively called High German (Hochdeutsch). This division of German
linguistic varieties is illustrated on the following map (Figure 2-2):
Figure 2-2 (König, 2004)
Here it is important to mention that, in contrast to popular usage, the adjectives
„low‟ and „high‟ in the context of German dialects refer neither to the prestige nor to the
amount of political, financial, or other power associated with these groups of dialects.
Instead, they designate the landscape of the mountainous southern regions (which lie
higher above the sea level) and the lower geographical position of the northern flatlands.
22
Further, despite „High German‟ being linguistically a collective term, which
includes a large number of German dialects, it is also the popular term for „standard
German‟ (Fox, 2005, p. 15; Stevenson, 1997, p. 65) and has been used synonymously
with “die deutsche Standartsprache”, “deutsche Literatursprache” and contrasted to
“Jargon”, “Dialekt”, “Alltagssprache” even by some respected modern German grammars
(e.g. Eisenberg, 2004, p. 1). Nevertheless, to avoid ambiguity in the subsequent chapters,
I will be using the term „High German‟ (HG) in its linguistic sense i.e. denoting any nonLow German dialect including the spoken High German of Russian Mennonites. My
decision to refer to this variety using the term „High German‟ was determined to a large
degree by the participants‟ own consistent usage of this term to refer to their non-Low
German German variety. At the same time, „High German‟ will be differentiated from the
standard variety of German, which will be referred to as „Standard High German‟ (SHG).
Although, as has been shown elsewhere (Fox, 2005, p. 16), this term is also not without
its problems, especially considering that German is a pluricentric language with several
standard national varieties (Germany, Austria, and Switzerland) “each with their own
norms” (Clyne, 1984, p. 1), for the purposes of this dissertation „Standard High German‟
will be understood as the variety described in a series of reference books known
collectively as „Der Duden‟. This collection of reference works seems to be the most
logical choice for this purpose since Duden has been overseeing and propagating the
norms of standard German for over a century (Russ, 1994, p. 4) and is generally
considered “the foremost authority on standard German and its use” (Epp, 1993, p. 4).
The discussion of my choice of Duden and of its appropriateness for the purposes of this
project are in Section 4.4.1.).
23
2.1.3 Low German, Plautdietsch, and Other Related Terms
Next, the term denoting the communal language of Russian Mennonites requires some
serious attention. It is quite clear that this language belongs to a Low German
(Niederdeutsch) group of dialects, which were left untouched by the Second Consonant
Shift. However, similarly to the term High German, which denotes Upper and Middle
German dialect groups, „Low German‟ can also refer to several large groups of German
dialects. Because a unified standard for these varieties does not exist, and since they
were spread over geographically vast territories (Netherlands, Northern Germany, West
and East Prussia), Low German dialects exhibit a great degree of variation. Similarly,
when describing varieties of Low German, numerous terms have been used, many of
which have multiple synonyms and equivalents in English and Standard German, or are
often derived from the native pronunciation of the varieties‟ names in each of the
aforementioned countries. Therefore, in the academic literature on Low German varieties
one encounters such terms as Plattdeutsch, Plaatdüütsch, Nederdüütsch, Low Saxon,
Nedersaksisch, Nether Saxon, Niederpreußisch,Westpreußisch (Thiessen, 1963),
Ostniederpreußisch, Nether Prussian, Platt, Weichselplatt (Moelleken, 1992),
Mennonitenplatt (Thiessen, 1963), Dietsch, Plautdietsch (Buchheit, 1978), Plautdîtsch
(Epp, 1993, pp. 9-10; Goerzen, 1972), etc. Most of these terms have been used as
synonyms in the context of Russian Mennonites. To make the situation even more
confusing, the terminology pertaining to the Low German varieties has changed
significantly over the past several centuries and different terms have been used to refer to
the same variety during different historical periods.4 However, this shall not concern us
here and only modern terminology will be discussed and used in this dissertation.
4
For more detailed information about the development of this terminology see Epp 1993 (p. 55).
24
Below I will identify and define the terms that will be used in the subsequent
chapters to describe the Low German variety spoken by Russian Mennonites, which
hopefully, will bring at least some clarity into this Low German terminological
confusion. In doing so, I am predominantly following the usage of these terms by Reuben
Epp, one of the best-known contemporary scholars of Mennonite Low German, and the
author of the very influential unified Low German spelling system. Most definitions cited
below are taken from his similarly well-known Story of Low German and Plautdietsch
(1993, pp. 1-12).
As already mentioned, Low German (Niederdeutsch) is a collective term that
stands for a group of linguistic varieties which developed along with the English, Frisian,
and the Nordic languages in the lands bordering the shores of the North Sea (Moss, 1983,
p. 661). All Low German varieties were left untouched by the Second Consonant Shift.
Although today Low German dialects are primarily spoken in parts of Netherlands and
Northern Germany (where the official languages are Dutch and High German,
respectively), until 1945 they were also used extensively in large areas to the East of the
present-day German-Polish border all the way to Russia (Kaliningrad/Königsberg),
Lithuania and Latvia. After the end of the Second World War, numerous refugees from
these areas took their varieties of Low German with them around the globe and continue
to speak them to this day (Epp, 1993).
It is quite interesting that some five hundred years ago, Low German was not only
the dominant spoken as well as written language in the aforementioned territories but also
the most important and widely-used international language of northern Europe (Epp,
1993b, p. 20). Yet since the collapse of the Hanseatic League in the fifteenth century,
25
High German began to gain influence in most Low German-speaking areas and soon
became the dominant and official language with a much higher reputation, thus
practically wiping out Low German from the written page (Epp, 1993, p. 34).
Nevertheless, despite its status as an inferior language (Epp, 1993, p. 26) and “an
incumbrance to social culture” (Möhn, 1983, p. 155), Low German varieties “continued
to be spoken by those millions of people from the Netherlands to the Baltic who had
always spoken it” (Epp, 1993, p. 27).
Similarly to High German (Hochdeutsch), Low German varieties are divided into
two main branches: Low Franconian (Niederfränkisch) and Low Saxon
(Niedersächsisch), also known as Plattdeutsch. Low Franconian varieties, sometimes
called Lower Franconian, are spoken as native tongues in Belgium and in the southern
portion of the Netherlands and a bit of Germany. As one moves eastward, Low
Franconian dialects gradually merge into the Low Saxon-speaking areas making it very
difficult if not impossible to say with any degree of certainty where one group ends and
the other begins (Epp, 1993; Stellmacher, 1983).
Low (Lower) Saxon varieties present the other branch of Low German and are spoken “in
various dialects in the Netherlands and Germany from Groningen in the West to
Mecklenburg and the former Pomerania in the East” (Epp, 1993, p. 3). Until the end of
World War II these varieties were also used throughout East and West Prussia. The large
geographical span of Low Saxon varieties together with the absence of a standard variety
resulted in noticeable differences between individual dialects, according to which they
have been divided into three major groups: Western Low German (Westniederdeutsch),
Eastern Low German (Ostniederdeutsch), and Low Prussian (Niederpreußisch). Each of
26
these groups, in turn, consists of numerous subdivisions and individual varieties. For
instance, the Low Prussian group alone is made up of no less than nine individual dialects
(Ziesemer, 1979), of which the one spoken in the areas of Danziger Nehrung and
Weichselwerder was accepted by the Mennonites emigrating there in large masses from
the early sixteenth century onwards (Figure 2-3). This is the variety that became known
as Plautdietsch (Epp, 1993, p. 10). There seems to be a scholarly consensus that although
the original varieties brought by Mennonite immigrants to Prussia have had an influence
on the language of the non-Mennonite population in Prussia (Ziesemer, 1979, p. 117),
they willingly gave up their original dialects in favour of the closely related local dialect.
Therefore, although Plautdietsch is the first language of most Mennonites whose
forefathers emigrated to Prussia at one point, it was also spoken by the local population
(Moelleken, 1987, p. 94) and therefore is not exclusively a Mennonite variety.
German Varieties
Upper
German
Middle
German
Low German
Low Franconian
Low Saxon /
Plattdeutsch
Western Low
German
Eastern Low
German
Plautdietsch
Low (Nether)
Prussian
Danziger Nehrung,
Weichselwerder
Figure 2-3
27
Natangisch
Käslausch
Similarly to other Low German varieties, Plautdietsch itself is not a unified homogenous
variety but exists in numerous forms varying from country to country and settlement to
settlement. According to Goerzen (1972), “even among the speakers of this dialect there
are various forms and linguistic variations” (p. 19) reflecting the often quite intricate
migration paths of the speakers‟ forefathers.5 Today Plautdietsch is the primary
communal language of many Mennonite settlements in South America and is being
increasingly used in domains traditionally reserved for High German, such as writing and
religious worship.
2.2
Other Linguistic Terms
Although the primary focus of this dissertation is on the High German of Russian
Mennonites, it is important to remember that this variety was always only one of several
languages extensively used in the Mennonite communities. Thus, in the sixteenth and
seventeenth centuries, when Netherlandic Mennonites were still emerging as a coherent
ethno-religious group, they were using various Low German and Frisian dialects as well
as some High German for informal communication, and Dutch for official, written, and
religious purposes. Later, in Prussia, when the group had already abandoned their original
vernacular in favour of the local Low German dialect, they were increasingly exposed to
High German and Polish but were still using Dutch for religious purposes. At the end of
the eighteenth century, when the Mennonite migration to Russia started, Dutch had
already been replaced entirely by High German and contact with the Russian and
5
Dialect division of Russian Mennonite Low German is discussed in more detail by Dyck (1964, pp. 1224), Moelleken (1967, pp. 240-251, 1972, pp. 14-15), and Quiring (1928, pp. 44-45).
28
Ukrainian languages began. This contact reached its apogee in the early twentieth
century, when Mennonites willingly attended Russian institutions of higher education and
when proficiency in Russian was necessary to succeed in one‟s career. This connection to
the Russian language was then almost entirely lost for many during and after World War
II. Having settled in North America, the group kept its Low German and High German
varieties, but English slowly made its way into the Mennonite communities and after
several decades became firmly established not only in the church and school, but also
became the primary language of everyday communication with children and
grandchildren in many families (see chapter 3). In other cases, up to this day English
stands shoulder to shoulder with Plautdietsch and High German fulfilling a greater and
greater range of functions. The way these languages were used by the group in various
historical periods, the relationship and interplay between them, the roles and functions
these languages fulfilled in Mennonite communities, as well as the attitudes towards
them, make Russian Mennonites a fascinating group to a linguist‟s eye.
2.2.1 Bilingualism with and without Diglossia
In order to investigate and describe these phenomena, I will rely on a number of linguistic
terms, some of which are not as straightforward as they may seem at first glance and
require additional clarification. First of all, as illustrated above, Russian Mennonites have
always used several linguistic varieties and therefore, will be referred to as bilingual.
Although the meaning of this term might seem quite clear at first, a look at the scholarly
research on the topic reveals a surprising lack of uniformity among linguists about what
the term should refer to. A large number of definitions have been proposed, with earlier
29
definitions relying on “distinctions on where and when languages were learned” and later
distinctions on “how easy or difficult it was to engage in cognitive tasks across as
compared to within languages” (Altarriba & Hereida, 2008, p. 3). On a similar note,
Romaine (1995) writes “bilingualism has often been defined and described in terms of
categories, scales and dichotomies such as ideal vs. partial bilingualism, coordinate vs.
compound bilingual etc.” (p. 11). Further, she mentions the position of Bloomfield, who
specifies „native-like control of two languages‟ (Bloomfield, 1933, p. 56) as the criterion
for bilingualism, and Haugen‟s observation that bilingualism begins when the speaker of
one language can produce complete meaningful utterances in the other language
(Haugen, 1953, p. 7) as the two opposing ends of the spectrum of definitions with
numerous other definitions in between. The major difficulty with most of them, however,
results from the fact that “the point at which the speaker of a second language becomes
bilingual is either arbitrary or impossible to determine” (Romaine, 1995, pp. 11-12).
In this dissertation, I am using a view of bilingualism which sees it as “the
practice of alternately using two languages” (Weinreich, 1968, p. 1). This view is also
represented by more recent researchers (e.g. Romaine, 1995) and understands
„bilingualism‟ to include multilingualism (e.g. Mackey, 1968, p. 555; Romaine, 1995, p.
12) or “the practice of using alternatively three or more languages” (Weinreich, 1968, p.
1).
Therefore, as Russian Mennonites were using at least two linguistic varieties
throughout their entire history, and as a result were bilingual, it is possible to speak of
them as a „bilingual community‟ or a community with „societal bilingualism‟ (Romaine,
1995, p. 23), or with „stable bilingualism‟ (Louden, 1988), which has been defined as a
30
„social, as opposed to individual situation of language contact‟ (Louden, 1994, p. 74).
However, societal bilingualism is not to be confused with the situation when two related
linguistic varieties in the same society stand in complementary functional distribution.
Such a specific linguistic relationship between two related varieties has been termed
„diglossia‟ and is a matter of extensive research, as can be seen from about 3,000 entries
in a bibliography on the topic by Mauro Fernández (1993).
At this point, an important distinction needs to be made: although in a diglossic
situation two linguistic varieties are used side by side in the same community, diglossia is
rather different from societal bilingualism, both of which according to Hudson (2002) are
“two major types of sociolinguistic arrangement” (p. 2) and are “fundamentally different
in their social origins, evolutionary course of development, and resolutions over the long
term” (p. 2). Consequently, diglossia does not necessarily presuppose the existence of
bilingual speakers, and either phenomenon can occur without the other (Fishman, 1967).
Traditionally the relationship between the two phenomena is represented as a two-by-two
table of dichotomized variables:
Bilingualism
+
-
Diglossia
+
1 Both diglossia and 3 Bilingualism without
bilingualism
diglossia
2 Diglossia without
4 Neither diglossia nor
bilingualism
bilingualism
Table 2-2: The relationship between diglossia and bilingualism (Romaine, 1995, p. 36)
As already mentioned, diglossia presupposes an existence of two varieties in the
same community: a superposed variety termed High (H), usually reserved for written and
more official purposes, and a vernacular variety referred to as Low (L). Here, it is
important to mention that the terms „High‟ and „Low‟ used in connection with diglossia
31
are not to be confused with the terms „High‟ and „Low‟ pertaining to the German
language, where both adjectives refer to the geographical location of German varieties
and their degree of being affected by the Second Consonant Shift. Thus, it is theoretically
possible for High German to be the „Low‟ variety and for Low German to function as a
„High‟ variety in a diglossic situation.
Further, while some authors claim that H and L have to be “mutually
unintelligible” (Croft, 2000, p. 17), other scholars do not make this distinction. At the
heart of diglossia lies the functional specialization of H and L – a set of situations in
which only one of the varieties is appropriate. In other words, “neither H nor L can
properly serve in the domains for which the other is used” (Croft, 2000, p. 92). Although
there is no predetermined fixed set of such functions for H and L, an example of typical
situations for each variety is presented in Table 2-3.
Sermon in church or mosque
Instructions to servants, waiters, etc.
Personal letter
Speech in parliament, political speech
University lecture
Conversation with family, friends, colleagues
News broadcast
Radio soap opera
Newspaper editorial, news story
Caption on political cartoon
Poetry
Folk literature
High
+
+
Low
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
Table 2-3: Situations for High and Low varieties of diglossia (Ferguson 1972: 236)
There is usually little if any overlap between the two sets. For example, in
diglossic communities such as Switzerland, “it is typical to read out loud from a
newspaper in H and discuss its contents in L” (Romaine, 1995, p. 33). Such strict
functional specialization of H and L, i.e. the appropriateness of only one variety in a
32
+
given situation, is “the most important hallmark of diglossia” (Romaine, 1995, p. 33).
Also, since H is typically required to fulfill a greater range of functions, it usually (but
not necessarily) develops a greater morphological complexity and a more extensive
vocabulary than the Low variety. Further distinctive characteristics of H are greater
prestige and superiority over L assigned to it by the speakers, a greater literary heritage
and a strong tradition of formal grammatical study and standardization (Romaine, 1995,
p. 34).
Although in Ferguson‟s original model it was assumed that the H and the L
varieties must belong to the same language, there have been a number of revisions to the
model, most notably by Joshua Fishman (1967), who did not see a genetic relationship
between H and L as a necessary condition for diglossia. In this dissertation, I am
following Hudson (2002), who writes that Fishman “goes beyond Ferguson in
recognizing that both genetically related and unrelated codes may stand in a diglossic
relationship to one another” (2002, p. 94), and claims that theoretically H and L do not
have to be genetically related, yet restricts the term diglossia to the „narrow‟ definition of
Ferguson: “In principle at least, the codes involved in this configuration might be
varieties of totally unrelated languages as readily as they might be minimally distinct
isolects of the same language. In practice, however, it is no accident that these codes tend
to be closely related structurally and generally to be regarded as varieties of the same
language, albeit significantly different varieties” (Hudson, 2002, p. 40).
In addition, diglossia differs from societal bilingualism in two other major
respects: the acquisition of both varieties by children and the degree of stability of
linguistic arrangements in each situation. Thus, in diglossia “no part of the community
33
uses the H variety for ordinary conversation” (Hudson, 2002, p. 3) and consequently the
use of H or L “is a function of solely social context, and not of social identity of the
speaker. In diglossia, it is context, not class, or other group membership that controls use”
(Hudson, 2002, p. 6) and therefore there is no prestige group of native H speakers.
Consequently, H and L may not be exchanged asymmetrically between the interlocutors
to identify social distance or “inequity of social standing in a given interactive event”
(Hudson, 2002, p. 4).
As a result, “children have no opportunity to acquire H as their native variety”
(Keller, 1982) and “H is not „native‟ to anyone, being a higher cultural endowment with
functions that cannot be mastered until after the period of normal first-language
acquisition” (Joseph, 1987, p. 17). Further, such relationship between the two codes in
the diglossic case “specifically protects the role of L variety as a natively learned variety”
(Hudson, 2002, p. 7) and makes the status of L in diglossic situations extremely stable.
Thus, in cases of diglossia “it is precisely the elevated or culturally prestigious variety,
not the vernacular, that has been displaced” (Hudson, 2002, p. 8), whereas in cases of
societal bilingualism, the general tendency appears to be for the higher-prestige language
eventually to invade the domain of the home, ultimately displacing the language of lesser
prestige as a first language in the community” (Hudson, 2002, p. 30).
Finally, diglossic situations are known to be very stable. Ferguson writes that
“diglossia typically persists at least several centuries, and evidence in some cases seems
to show that it can last well over a thousand years” (Ferguson, 1959, p. 332). Similarly,
Coulmas identifies stability as “one of the most remarkable characteristics of diglossia”
(1987, p. 117), and Fishman calls diglossia “an enduring societal arrangement, extending
34
at least beyond a three generation period” (1980, p. 3). Certain diglossic situations, such
as that in the Arabic world, seem to go as far back as our recorded history of language
(Ferguson, 1959, p. 240).
Both concepts (bilingualism and diglossia) are crucial for the description of the
sociolinguistic arrangements of Russian Mennonites, since the group was always in
contact with numerous languages, many of which co-existed in their communities for
decades or even centuries, with some varieties fulfilling very specific and strictly defined
separate functions. Both terms will be needed when analyzing sociolinguistic aspects of
different languages and the interplay between them in Russian Mennonite communities.
2.2.2 Borrowing, Code-Switching, and Convergence
As expected, in societies with stable bilingualism, i.e. in which two linguistic varieties
exist side by side and are being extensively used in the same community, both languages
are maintained side-by-side over a considerable period of time, both enjoy daily use and
speakers commonly switch between the two (Louden, 1994, p. 75). One of the most
logical outcomes of such contact is that elements from one language start to appear in the
other. Such usage of elements from another variety or “attempted reproduction in one
language of patterns previously found in another” (Haugen, 1950, p. 212) will be referred
to as „borrowing‟.6 Although numerous other terms have been proposed to refer to this
phenomenon, such as interference (Romaine, 2000), transference or carryover (Clyne,
2003), I shall prefer borrowing for its more neutral denotation, as has been done by other
authors (e.g. Myers-Scotton, 2006).
6
Of course, borrowing is used here in the linguistic sense and consequently, the donor need not be aware of
the loan and does not consent to it, while the recipient need not repay it (McMahon, 1996, p. 200).
35
More specifically, instances of borrowing individual lexemes – “the first foreign
element to enter the borrowing language” (Thomason & Kaufman, 1988, p. 37) – will be
denoted as „lexical borrowings‟ (McMahon, 1996, p. 200), which will be further
subdivided into two types: cultural and core lexical borrowings.
Cultural borrowing will refer to “words that fill gaps in the recipient language‟s
store of words because they stand for objects or concepts new to the language‟s culture”
(Myers-Scotton, 2006, p. 212). An example of cultural borrowings can be such nouns as
„махорка‟ (cheap bulk tobacco used for home-made roll-up cigarettes), „квас‟ (a mildly
alcoholic drink made from fermenting dark rye bread), or „макуха‟ (dry product
remaining after pressing oil from sunflower seeds. When poor technology was used,
much of the actual seed remained in the pressed „cake‟ making it edible for cattle and, in
some situations, for humans). All of these concepts are considered cultural lexical
borrowings since they are highly specific to everyday life in the Soviet Union in the preWorld War II period and do not exist in other linguistic systems.
Core borrowings denote “words that duplicate elements that the recipient
language already had in its word store” (Myers-Scotton, 2006, p. 215). For example, such
words as „university‟, „interesting‟, or „хлеб‟ (bread), „кино‟ (movie theatre), „базар‟
(market), used in High German discourse despite the fact that the speakers knew their
equivalents in High German, will be considered core borrowings. Other examples of
frequently occurring core lexical borrowings in the speech of Russian Mennonites are the
nouns „Okope‟ or „Wagone‟ from the Russian „окопы‟ („trenches‟) and „вагоны‟
(railway cars) which have almost replaced their High German equivalent
„Schützengraben‟ and „Waggons‟.
36
However, instances of lexical borrowing affecting individual lexical elements will
be distinguished only from the cases when speakers change the language completely at
clause boundaries – the phenomenon known as “inter-sentential switching” (Romaine,
2000, p. 57), which I will refer to simply as „code-switching‟. Although some scholars
prefer to use the term language (code) mixing, which they differentiate from codeswitching (Kachru, 1978; Singh, 1985), I shall avoid using this term as it has been
frequently pointed out that there is very little if any difference between them (Jones &
Singh, 2005, p. 48; Winford, 2003, p. 106).
Although in the case of borrowing “the lexicon is most easily and radically
affected” (McMahon, 1996, p. 209) and some researchers insist on restricting the scope
of the term to lexical items only (Myers-Scotton, 2006, p. 208), “no component of a
natural language is totally immune to change under impression of outside languages”
(Winter, 1973, p. 144) and borrowing has been shown to take place at various other
linguistic levels, such as phonology, morphology, and syntax (e.g. McMahon, 1996, pp.
200-213). Therefore, in this dissertation the term borrowing will be used in the broader
sense and will refer to “incorporation of foreign elements” (Thomason & Kaufman, 1988,
p. 21) into another language and not only to the borrowing of individual lexical items.
Further, when two or more different languages exist in the same community for a
prolonged period of time, they sometimes exercise such an influence upon each other that
their structures gradually “become more and more similar” (McMahon, 1996, p. 213).
Such process of “making languages more similar to each other (including through
37
borrowing)” (Clyne, 2003, p. 79) is known as convergence.7 It must be noted, however,
that in sociolinguistics and discourse analysis convergence also refers to “the common
form of accommodation … by which speakers shift their style of speech to become more
like that of their addressees” (Llamas, Mullany, & Stockwell, 2007, p. 96). Yet, in this
dissertation the term will be used in its sense of meaning “long-term dialect
accommodation” (Llamas, Mullany, & Stockwell, 2007, p. 109).
It has been frequently pointed out that “convergence typically occurs in situations
where … all, or the majority of speakers must learn and use two (or more) languages”
(McMahon, 1996, p. 213; also Huffines, 1994, p. 47). The most notable difference
between borrowing and conversion is the fact that borrowing typically operates on the
level of vocabulary, whereas convergence “has its greatest effect on the syntax and
morphology” (p. 213). The most typical causes of such changes include ease of learning
and communicative efficiency.
All of the above-mentioned terms will be necessary for the structural analysis of
the High German spoken by Russian Mennonites, since all of the interviewed speakers
without exception had good knowledge of at least two languages other than High German
which, as shown in the subsequent chapters, found reflection in their High German
discourse. Further, as claimed in chapter 7, particular changes that distinguish Russian
Mennonite High German from Standard High German can be attributed to the processes
of convergence with other linguistic systems with which the group was in prolonged
contact.
7
This process should not be confused with conversion, “a functional shift from one category to another”
which “typically involves derivation from one major class item to another” (Brinton & Traugott, 2005, p.
37), such as water (Noun) > (to) water (Verb) or essen (verb) > (das) Essen (Noun).
38
2.3
Theoretical Framework
2.3.1
Construction Grammar: Overview
In order to adequately describe and account for grammatical peculiarities of Russian
Mennonite High German, I adopted a relatively young but influential approach to
language known as Construction Grammar (further abbreviated as “CxG”). In very
general terms, Construction Grammar can be defined as “a sign-based grammatical model
that is organized around the notion of GRAMMATICAL CONSTRUCTION as the basic unit of
analysis and representation” (Fried & Östman, 2004b, p. 12) and is “a family of linguistic
approaches which focuses on the structure and function of constructions in grammar”
(Bergs & Diewald, 2006, p. 1). This multi-dimensional theoretical model of linguistic
analysis has its roots in the cognitively-oriented grammatical theories of the 1970s, such
as Case Grammar (Fillmore, 1968), Relational Grammar (Keenan & Comrie, 1977;
Perlmutter & Postal, 1977) and Gestalt Grammar (Lakoff, 1977). The foundations of CxG
were laid in the mid-1980s and the 1990s primarily by Charles Fillmore and Paul Kay.
Since then the framework has been successfully extended in various directions by
Lambrecht (1994) on information structure, Goldberg (1995) on argument structure, and
Kay on formal semantics (1997).
Construction Grammar is a rather unusual linguistic theory in several respects.
First of all, despite of almost two decades of its existence, and quite an extensive body of
publications on this theoretical approach, there is no “proper introduction to the model
accessible to the general public” (Östman & Fried, 2005, p. 7) Secondly, unlike most
other theories of grammar in present-day linguistics, CG does not form a single unified
theory but is rather a “family of loosely connected models” (Östman & Fried, 2005, p. 1).
39
According to Fischer & Stefanowitsch (2006, pp. 3-4), the most well-known trends
within this framework are:
1) the Berkeley-school (Fillmore, 1985; 1988; Kay, 1997; Kay & Fillmore,1999)
closely associated with the Frame Semantics model (Fillmore, 1982) and
Head-driven Phrase Structure Grammar (Pollard & Sag, 1994; Sag, Wasow, &
Bender, 2003);
2) Lakoff‟s and Goldberg‟s theory, which is strongly influenced by cognitive
linguistics (Goldberg, 1995; Lakoff, 1977);
3) the Radical Construction Grammar approach of William Croft (2001, 2005).
Although there are minor theoretical differences between these approaches, e.g. their
stance on whether or not CxG should be a generative model, what the required degree of
formalisation is, in how far the theory can represent linguistic universals, or whether the
framework should be concerned with the speaker‟s psychological processes (Fischer &
Stefanowitsch, 2006, pp. 8-15), these schools of construction grammar share core
theoretical assumptions and are similar enough to be considered variations of the same
theoretical paradigm.
In this dissertation, I do not adhere to a particular school of CxG, but adopt the
original approach common to all the trends of construction grammar which William Croft
labelled “vanilla construction grammar” (Croft, 2005). Despite the absence of a single
authoritative textbook on CxG, a number of comprehensive overviews outlining the main
conceptual points of „vanilla‟ CxG have appeared in recent years (e.g. Croft, 2001, 2005;
Fischer & Stefanowitsch, 2006; Östman & Fried, 2005). Below I will briefly outline the
40
main overarching principles shared by all constructionalist frameworks which make these
models distinct from other approaches. These are:
1) non-modularity of form and meaning;
2) the notion of grammatical construction as a basic unit of linguistic representation;
3) the organization of constructions in a language into hierarchical networks with
overlapping constituents;
4) high sensitivity of constructions to frequency as well as to their respective co- and
con-texts.8
Now let us take a more precise look at each of these principles. The first salient
characteristic of CxG theories is the realisation that combining two or more forms usually
does not result in a simple concatenation of the meanings those forms have in isolation
(Fried & Östman, 2004a). This insight can be best illustrated by the example of idioms,
which present a problematic phenomenon for the traditional componential models of
language and thus are in part responsible for the rise of CxG (Croft, 2001, 2005). For
example, the German noun der Löffel (spoon) and the verb abgeben (to give up) produce
a combination (den Löffel abgeben) with a meaning very similar to that of the English
expression to kick the bucket (to die). In both cases, the meaning of each expression can
only distantly be traced back to the denotations of their individual components.
Consequently, Construction Grammar, centering around the notion of a linguistic sign,
argues that the form and meaning9 of a given linguistic construction do not form separate
8
According to (Diewald & Bergs, 2006, p. 17) „co-text‟ refers to the strictly linguistic environment of a
given item, whereas „con-text‟ encompasses extra-linguistic, communicative, and pragmatic factors.
9
This second constituent of linguistic constructions is sometimes identified as „meaning‟ (e.g. Östman &
Fried, 2005, p. 1), sometimes as „function‟ (e.g. Goldberg, 2006, p. 1), and sometimes as
'function/meaning‟ (e.g. Croft, 2005, p. 275). However, since all CxG approaches generally see function
and meaning (semantic, pragmatic, and discourse functional properties) as inseparable from each other (see
Figure 2-4), I will refer to it simply as „meaning‟.
41
independent modules, but are inseparable and stand in a complex relationship to each
other.
This leads to the second underlying assumption of CxG, namely that these basic
conventional associations between form and meaning are the primary units of linguistic
representation. These are considered to be basic building blocks of linguistic analysis and
are called grammatical constructions, which are defined as “an abstract, a representational
entity, a conventional pattern of linguistic structure that provides a general blueprint for
licensing well-formed linguistic expressions” (Fried & Boas, 2005, p. 18).
Therefore, constructions are “fundamentally symbolic units” that consist of
“pairings of form and meaning that are at least partially arbitrary” (Croft, 2001, p. 18).
The term „meaning‟ in CxG subsumes all of the conventionalized aspects of a given
construction including its semantic, pragmatic, and discourse-functional properties. The
„form‟ of a construction refers to and consists of its morphosyntactic and
phonological/graphological properties. This is best summarized in Figure 2-4.
Further, CxG distinguishes between constructions (the abstract blueprints) and the
so-called constructs (Bergs & Diewald, 2006, p. 5) or allostructions (Capelle, 2006),
which are the real-life realizations, the actually occurring types of expressions. Of course,
CxG does not see the linguistic blueprints and the actual expressions as separate but
claims that there is a “continuum between schematic and concrete constructions” (Bergs
& Diewald, 2006, p. 5) (also Croft, 2001; Tomasello, 2005). This gives CxG the potential
42
to account for linguistic variability (e.g. Leino & Östman, 2005), which is inextricably
entwined with language change.10
Figure 2-4 The symbolic structure of a construction (Croft 2001, 18)
At this point it is important to mention that CxG does not impose any a priori
requirement that every construction specify a predetermined set of properties or
categories. Nor is there a minimum number or type of properties that have to be specified
for a particular construction. In fact, CxG approaches start with the data and “only then
develop the necessary formalism on the basis of what they find and deem necessary”
(Bergs & Diewald, 2006, p. 2). For example, if a certain construction is centered around
its structural organization only, while its semantics is fully compositional (im Dunkeln
sitzen [to sit in the dark] as opposed to im Zimmer sitzen [to sit in the room]), it does not
have to be specified as a whole. However, often there is a need to include specific
discourse-functional and pragmatic features among the defining properties of a
construction. This becomes obvious if we recall that often two expressions seem to have
exactly the same structure (e.g. Thank you! and See you!) but have different semantic and
pragmatic characteristics that sanction their use (Fried & Östman, 2004a, p. 15). Thus,
CxG interprets Thank you! and See you! as two different constructions.
10
In fact, as early as 1968 Weinreich, Labov, and Herzog claimed that “Not all variability and
heterogeneity in language structure involves change; but all change involves variability and heterogeneity”
(p. 187).
43
The last step in defining the grammatical construction is the realization that
constructions can represent everything from morphemes to single-word and multiword
lexemes, and to the most general syntactic and semantic rules. Thus, one can have fully
morphological constructions, where the internal structure of words is presented as a
construction. These can include both free and bound morphemes as well as clitic
elements. On the other end, one can have larger syntactic constructions, which may be
fully or partially lexically filled and may include “fully general phrasal patterns”
(Goldberg, 2006, p. 5). Examples are given in Table 2-4.
Morpheme
Word
Complex Word
Complex Word (partially filled)
Idiom
Idiom (partially filled)
Covariable Conditional
Ditransitive
Passive
e.g. ent-, ver-, -bar, -los
e.g. Tisch, Nacht
e.g. Unternehmer, Großmutter
e.g. [N-e] (for some plurals) Tische, Schirme
e.g. Haus und Hof, mit Ach und Krach
e.g. <jemandem> durch Mark und Bein gehen
je Xer desto/umso Yer (e.g. je schneller
desto/umso besser)
Subj V OBJDAT OBJACC (e.g. Er schreibt ihr
einen Brief.)
Subj aux PPVON/DURCH VPPAST PART. (e.g. Der Text
wird von dem Studenten gelesen; das Haus wird
durch den Wind zerstört.)
Table 2-4: Examples of constructions, varying in size and complexity (Adapted for German from Goldberg 2006 (p. 5)
The logical consequence of representing lexical items, larger linguistic patterns, as well
as regular syntactic and semantic rules as constructions, is the assertion that lexicon and
grammar do not form separate components of a language and that there is a continuum
between lexical unit and syntactic constructions. Words and phrasal patterns are thus
treated as equal contributors to building up complex linguistic expressions” (Fried &
Östman, 2004a, p. 22).
The third tenet of all Construction Grammar approaches is the assertion that the
constructions of a given language do not simply form an irregular list of all patterns
44
possible in that language. Instead, they reflect the linguistic conventions that the speakers
of the language know and form a “structured inventory” of conventions (Langacker,
1987, pp. 63-76), which is often characterised as a network structure (Goldberg, 1995;
Lakoff, 1977), best described as a taxonomic hierarchy of overlapping patterns with
“inheritance, polysemy, and synonymy relations” (Bergs & Diewald, 2006, p. 1). Each
construction with idiosyncratic morphological, syntactic, lexical, semantic, pragmatic or
discourse-functional properties is presented as a separate node. For example, despite the
identical syntactic structure ([ACC N abgeben]), den Löffel abgeben („to hand in the
spoon‟ = to die) and den Aufsatz abgeben (to hand in the essay) are different
constructions and therefore occupy two related but separate nodes in the large network of
constructions. Consequently, unlike generative theories, CxG does not derive one
construction from another but assumes that “constructions are combined freely to form
actual expressions as long as they are not in conflict” (Goldberg, 2006, p. 10). An actual
expression, therefore, “typically involves at least half a dozen different constructions”
(Goldberg, 2006, p. 10).
Lastly, CxG assumes that constructions are often very co-text, con-text, and
frequency sensitive, i.e. linguistic change in general involves factors which can be found
outside of the linguistic system as such (Bergs & Diewald, 2006, p. 7). For example, the
construction „weißt du‟ exists in European German but has been used much more
frequently in American-German dialects under the influence of the English „you know‟
and has been shown to fulfill functions similar to those of „you know‟ (Salmons, 1990).
Because of such differences in frequency and functions, CxG would view the German
and the German-American „weißt du‟ as two different constructions. Thus, CxG rejects
45
the notion of “the strict division between semantics and pragmatics” (Goldberg, 1995, p.
8) and, besides capturing co-textual factors through syntagmatic configurations,
“explicitly calls for an inclusion of contextual factors” (Bergs & Diewald, 2006, p. 8).
The importance of context for linguistic change (more specifically, grammaticalization)
was shown by Himmelmann (2004) with the example of article development from
demonstratives, and by Diewald (2006) with the development of modals in German.
Further, in CxG frequency is viewed to be an important characteristic of constructions as
such. Thus, despite the above-mentioned non-compositionality of meaning being a
defining feature of a construction (e.g. Croft, 2001, p. 18; Goldberg, 1995, p. 4), high
frequency of use may override this criterion and even fully compositional patterns are
viewed by CxG as constructions as long as they are sufficiently frequent (Bergs &
Diewald, 2006, pp. 6-7; Goldberg, 2006, p. 5; Goldberg & Jackendoff, 2004, p. 533). The
sensitivity of linguistic constructions to the context and frequency in situations of
language contact, including varieties of German spoken outside of Germany, is discussed
and exemplified by Heine and Kuteva (2006, pp. 44-58). To conclude, it can be said that
with these views CxG presents an alternative mode of grammatical organisation to a
transformational theory‟s system of components and rules (Croft, 2005, p. 276) and is “a
particularly suitable tool for investigating and describing language change” (Bergs &
Diewald, 2006, p. 2).
46
2.3.2 Advantages of the Constructional Approach
The main reason for adopting this particular approach to language was that it “provides a
uniform model of grammatical representation and at the same time captures a broader
range of empirical phenomena than compositional models of grammar” (Croft, 2001, p.
17). The practical advantages of this approach over the other formal theories of grammar
are threefold: a) CxG is a usage (performance)-based model, b) it offers an extremely
valuable tool – the notion of grammatical construction, c) it offers a variable degree of
formalisation.
The major advantage of CxG over the other formal theories of grammar results
from its usage-oriented nature. While Chomskyan theories of grammar generate and
recognise endlessly complex sentences, they leave outside their scope many kinds of
structures that speakers of a given language produce and comprehend in their everyday
language use (Fried & Östman, 2004a, p. 14). CxG, in contrast, is a usage-based
approach which aims to account for all constructions occurring in the language. CxG
does not distinguish between the „core‟ (basic, standard, central) and the „peripheral‟
(exceptional, irregular, unpredictable) parts of a language and CxG seeks to describe
both. CxG makes it possible, therefore, to describe constructions which in other models
are treated as exceptions, with the same instruments as the regular constructions
(Diewald, 2006, p. 85; Kay & Fillmore, 1999, p. 1) and can systematically link the
irregular and regular phenomena not only when a constructions unequivocally belongs to
the lexical or grammatical domain (Diewald, 2006, p. 86).
Secondly, CxG “offers a fruitful and insightful approach to analysing language
through a single conceptual tool – the notion of construction” (Fried & Östman, 2004b, p.
47
76). In itself, the concept of grammatical construction is “broad enough to represent every
morphological or syntactic arguments/criteria/tests for identifying any syntactic category”
and can be applied “to any grammatical structure, including both its form and its
meaning” (Croft, 2001, p. 17). Besides, grammatical construction seems to be especially
well-suited to the analysis of spoken texts. As Chafe (1994), Pawley & Syder (1983),
Pawley (1987), and others have shown, we do not talk in individual words, linguistic
phrases, or sentences, but rather in blocks, prosodic units, in spurts of several seconds,
which can be nicely captured by the notion of construction. Also, it has been shown that
very often “linguistic change does not affect only single linguistic items, like words,
morphemes, or phonemes, but also syntagmatic structures up to the sentential and
utterance levels. Therefore, having accepted the notion of grammatical construction as a
unit of analysis, I do not have to make a choice of what to consider a piece of linguistic
material: a word, a phrase, or a sentence (Fried & Östman, 2004a, p. 17).
A more practical example, in which the usefulness of „constructions‟ becomes
evident, is analysis of linguistic borrowings. Since, as already mentioned, borrowing can
occur on all linguistic levels, it may affect the phonology, morphology, lexical domain,
syntax, semantics, and pragmatics of a given language. This classification is fairly
straightforward if we are dealing with borrowings that affect one of these levels (usually
grammatical or semantic). The notion of construction comes in very useful in situations
when borrowing affects several linguistic levels simultaneously and changes a
construction‟s semantic and/or pragmatic properties, or frequency of use. Since
constructions are pairings of form and meaning/function, both parts have to be considered
48
jointly, which allows to describe a much wider range of actually occurring expressions
than traditional approaches to grammar.
Thirdly, as CxG does not have a single uniform notation for constructions, it
allows structural descriptions “with varying granularity” and “provides for analytical
solutions that avoid over-specified, non-provable descriptions and analyses” (Bergs &
Diewald, 2006, p. 3). In practical terms, this gives the researcher an opportunity a) to
leave parts of constructions unspecified; and b) to deal with syntactic, semantic, and
pragmatic features in a consistent manner (Diewald, 2006, p. 87).
Finally, CxG has been shown to have potential for diachronic linguistics (Bergs &
Diewald, 2006; Diewald, 2006; Heine & Kuteva, 2006) and to be “very compatible and
helpful for investigations in linguistic typology and the effects of language contact”
(Bergs & Diewald, 2006, p. 11). Examples of such studies on the German language
include Diewald, 2006, Diewald & Habermann, 2005, and Haberzettl, 2006.
49
3. THE LINGUISTIC HISTORY OF RUSSIAN MENNONITES
Before going into details of the Russian Mennonites‟ present linguistic situation, it is
necessary to take a detailed look into their linguistic past. Though not very long, their
linguistic history is remarkably rich and enviably fascinating. It begins almost five
centuries ago in northern continental Europe with the Evangelical doctrine arriving in the
Lowlands from Switzerland and southern Germany, and follows through the centuries in
an ongoing series of migrations through the lands of Prussia, the steppes of Southern
Russia (present-day Ukraine), to the shores of today‟s Canada.
Although “the epithet „Mennonite‟ is really a religious term” (Goerzen, 1972, p.
20), in the light of their history Russian Mennonites are generally recognized as a
separate ethnic group (e.g. Francis, 1948; Goerzen, 1972; Urry, 1989, p. 262). Therefore,
it is possible to trace their ethnic heritage to the earliest known sources, as is indeed done
by some researchers, such as Epp (1993), who goes as far back as the fourth century AD,
before some of the Germanic tribes settled on the British Isles. Although definitely
fascinating, this early history shall not concern us here as it does not deal with
Mennonites as such, and I will start telling the Mennonite linguistic story in the sixteenth
century with the appearance of Mennonites as a religious group in the European Low
Lands.
50
3.1
Early Mennonites in Northern Europe
3.1.1 The Original Homeland
The first Mennonite congregation in Northern Europe was established in the first half of
the sixteenth century in the area known as „Dreierfriesland‟ or the „Frisia Triplex‟ which
encompasses the provinces of Friesland, Groningen, and East Friesland. Today, the first
two territories are a part of the Netherlands, whereas East Friesland belongs to Germany.
Although these three provinces are considered the original home of the Netherlandic
Mennonites (Unruh, 1955, p. 133), there is much evidence that the geographical
homeland of the northern Anabaptists was much larger and included most of the
Netherlands as well as some neighbouring Belgian and German areas. For example,
Smith claims that Mennonites were chiefly found in the coastal provinces of the
Netherlands and, in addition to the Frisia Triplex, names Flanders, Zeeland and Holland
as territories with considerable numbers of Anabaptists. In addition, he mentions small
numerous groups of Mennonites “also scattered throughout the interior regions” (1981, p.
103). On a similar note, Unruh writes that the majority of Anabaptist immigrants in
Prussia originated in the Dutch and North German area, primarily in the region between
Brugge, Eider and Jütland (p. 133). In addition, there is evidence that a large number of
Anabaptists from other parts of the Holy Roman Empire sought refuge in the Low Lands,
particularly in East Friesland, where the government was much more lenient towards the
reformers than in the rest of the Netherlands (Dyck, 1964, p. 2; Epp, 1993, p. 57)
51
3.1.2 The Flemish and the Frisian Mennonites
The first of the Dutch provinces to impose punishment by death on all Anabaptists, and
the territory where the Inquisition worked most ruthlessly, was Flanders (Smith, 1981, p.
105). Understandably, trying to save their lives, Mennonites left Flanders in masses and
escaped to the North, which brought a large number of Low Franconian-speaking
refugees to the mostly Low Saxon-speaking Frisia Triplex. These refugees differed from
their Frisian co-believers in ethnic traits, in language, and in religious customs and
practices (Smith, 1981, p. 110). Soon after their arrival, the Flemish disagreed with the
local Mennonite communities on a number of (from today‟s perspective) relatively small
religious and cultural issues, which led to a rift between the Flemish refugees and the
Frisian Mennonites. They established separate congregations, excommunicated those
who intermarried with the other branch and rebaptized everyone who wished to transfer
their membership. Interestingly, at the same time both groups continued to follow the
same confession of faith (Dyck, 1964, p. 3). A number of attempts at reconciliation were
in vain, and the split into the Frisian and Flemish branches of the Mennonite church was
maintained for nearly two full centuries until they finally united in one congregation in
1808 (Smith, 1981, p. 176)
Although the terms „Flemish‟ and „Frisian‟ in the context of Netherlandic
Mennonites initially referred to the natives of Flanders and Friesland respectively, most
researchers agree that the designation of Frisian and Flemish followed religious rather
than ethnic lines11 (Dyck, 1964, p. 6). Naturally, after living side-by-side for several
centuries, the two groups mixed and were often referred to as the „flemo-frisians‟ (e.g.
11
Details of particular differences in the church practices of each group are discussed by Friesen (1989a, p.
43).
52
Goerzen, 1972). Consequently, today hardly any Mennonite will be able to insist on his
or her Frisian or Flemish heritage or even church affiliation with any degree of certainty.
Thus, already half a century ago Thiessen wrote that “bei Befragungen unter den
Mennoniten selbst ergeben sich keine eindeutigen Schlüsse” (1963, p. 16).
3.1.3 Languages of the Early Mennonites
Considering that the body of the first Anabaptists in northern Europe stemmed from
geographically vast territories and encompassed various “ethnically heterogeneous
elements” (Francis, 1948, p. 103), it is not surprising that they spoke a number of
Germanic varieties, such as Low Franconian, Low Saxon, and Frisian (Francis, 1948, p.
103) as well as “other dialects depending on from what part of the Low Countries they
had come” (Duerksen, 1967, p. 107). Generally, Low Franconian, Low Saxon, and
Frisian are reported to be the three West-Germanic languages that contributed the most to
the formation of the Mennonite dialect (Buchheit, 1978, p. 9; Unruh, 1955, p. 13).
Although some authors claim that because of the Saxonization of the Frisians in
the fifteenth century, “there remained little difference in the Saxon dialect among the
people of Frisia, East Frisia, and Groningen” (Buchheit, 1978, p. 10), there is a strong
indication that those Anabaptists who were native to the province of Frisia (also known
as West Frisia or West Friesland) at that time spoke the Frisian language (Epp, 1993, p.
53; Unruh, 1955, p. 12). It also must be mentioned that besides the Low German, Frisian,
and Low Franconian varieties, there were always some “High German additions” from
the neighbouring German territories as well as those who “had found their way from
Switzerland and South Germany” (Dyck, 1964, p. 4).
53
The opinions of researchers on whether the distinction of Mennonites into the
Frisian and the Flemish branch was of importance to their languages show a surprising
lack of unanimity. While some scholars claim that it was of no significance to the
languages spoken later by each of the groups (Buchheit, 1978, p. 9; Thiessen, 1963, p.
16), others insist that ethnic and religious origins influenced the selection and use of one
dialect or another in the main Mennonite colonies in Southern Russia (e.g. Quiring, 1928,
p. 45; Unruh, 1955, p. 153). As we shall see later in this chapter, the Frisians and the
Flemish did have somewhat different linguistic habits and preferences, which played a
role at a later stage of their history.
But regardless of the varieties spoken by the first
Mennonites in the Low Countries, those few of them who could write probably wrote
“what one would term to be Dutch” (Epp, 1993, p. 54). Albeit in various forms, Dutch
was the only language to be used regularly behind the pulpit in the Mennonite
congregations and for official written communication. However, because of the strong
Frisian, Low Franconian, and Low Saxon influences, the Dutch of early Anabaptists has
been frequently labelled as „impure Dutch‟ (e.g. Dyck, 1964, p. 6; Epp, 1993, p. 54) or
“mengelmoes” (hodgepodge) (Buchheit, 1978, p. 14; Unruh, 1955, pp. 85, 123).
3.1.4 Languages of the Northern Anabaptists before Migrating to Prussia
The first Anabaptists in northern Europe originated in the Frisia Triplex and spoke mainly
Low Saxon dialects of Low German (in Groningen and East Frisia) as well as Frisian in
the province of (West) Frisia. Around the middle of the sixteenth century, a large number
of Flemish (Vlaams) speaking Mennonites from Flanders settled in these areas, thus
bringing Low Franconian varieties to the Frisia Triplex. In addition, there were some
54
refugees from the neighbouring territories speaking their local varieties, all of whom were
“absorbed by the large body of Menno‟s followers” (Francis, 1948, p. 103).
The sole language of religion was Dutch, which existed among Mennonites in
numerous forms and showed influence from Low Saxon, Low Franconian, or Frisian,
depending on the native dialect of a specific Mennonite congregation. For written
correspondence, forms of Dutch were predominantly used, but there is some indication
that High German speaking refugees from the surrounding German territories, as well as
a few from Switzerland, Austria, and southern Germany, used their varieties for writing
as well.
3.2
Netherlandic Mennonites in Prussia
3.2.1 Migration from the Low Lands
Until 1578, when William I, the Prince of Orange (1533-1584), conquered the Dutch
provinces one after another and established a limited degree of religious toleration
(Smith, 1981, p. 105), Mennonites in the Frisia Triplex suffered greatly under persistent
persecution. Severe oppression started immediately after Anabaptism reached the
northern lands in the 1530s and, according to various sources, put between five hundred
and two thousand Mennonites to martyrs‟ deaths (Smith, 1981, p. 105). Understandably,
Mennonites fled for their lives first to the northern Dutch and German provinces, where
they found only a temporary refuge, and then accepted the invitation of Polish
landowners to settle in the Vistula-Nogat delta in West Prussia, which had belonged to
Poland since the Peace of Thorn in 1466 (Goerzen, 1972, p. 21).
55
Although the main migration of the Anabaptists from the Frisia Triplex to the
Vistula delta and Danzig began in the 1540s (Unruh, 1955, p. 32), it is known that as
early as in 1534 the Danzig city council tried to prevent Anabaptists from boarding ships
to the free city (Smith, 1981, p. 166). In fact, by 1547 there was a large Mennonite
contingent already living near Danzig (Epp, 1993, p. 57). Menno Simons himself visited
this congregation in 1549 (Smith, 1981, p. 166). The massive migration of Mennonites
from the Frisia Triplex to West Prussia continued well into the seventeenth century (Epp,
1993, p. 57).
The main reason for inviting Mennonites to West Prussia and offering them
religious freedom was the need to redevelop and expand agricultural production on the
lands of the delta, which lay just above the sea level and were severely flooded by the
river Vistula. Mennonites, who had dealt with very similar difficulties in the Netherlands
and were known for their expertise in “land reclamation from sea by means of dikes and
canals” (Buchheit, 1978, p. 10), gladly accepted the invitation and were greatly
appreciated for their skills.
Being saved from death, Mennonites eagerly took to work and “soon became
noted for their industry, for their farming production and for their transformation of the
delta from swamplands to agricultural masterpieces” (Epp, 1993, p. 65), which ultimately
gave the area the name „Prussian Netherlands‟. The great success of Mennonite settlers is
also evident from the way their settlements expanded: the first Mennonites in Prussia
settled around the cities of Danzig and Elbing and then spread to the lowlands higher up
the Vistula and Nogat in the course of several decades reaching Graudenz and Thorn
(Dyck, 1964, p. 5; Geisler, 1922, p. 122; Unruh, 1955, p. 149). Although later Mennonite
56
settlements were also established in other parts of Prussia, the great majority of them
stayed in the Vistula delta at least until the Mennonite migration to Russia was well on its
way.
3.2.2 Languages of the Early Mennonites in Prussia
When the Mennonites migrated to Prussia from the Frisia Triplex, they brought along “a
loosely-knitted dialect of Nether Saxon Low German” (Epp, 1993, p. 58), which, as
already mentioned, contained Dutch, Frisian, and Flemish elements. The name by which
Mennonites referred to this language has not been recorded but “in all likelihood it was
„Dietsch‟ ”(Epp, 1993, p. 58).
Despite the fact that the territories in West Prussia in which Mennonites
established their settlements had been under Polish domination since the fifteenth
century, the local population was largely German and spoke West Prussian Platt, a dialect
used throughout the Vistula region (Dyck, 1964, pp. 6-7; Francis, 1955, p. 16), also
referred to as Eastern Low German or „Ostniederdeutsch‟ (Epp, 1993, p. 67). As is the
case with most Low German languages, the Low German spoken in Prussia was not a
unified variety but consisted of no fewer than nine different dialects (Ziesemer, 1979, p.
137).
Although Buchheit (1978) mentions “a greater urgency [for Mennonites] to adopt
the dialect of this region, since communication with their non-Mennonite neighbours
concerning business matters was certainly desirable, if not imperative” (p. 14), there is
little doubt that the Low Prussian varieties spoken in the delta were readily
understandable to the incoming Netherlanders (Epp, 1993, p. 67; Unruh, 1955, pp. 123-
57
124), who merely adopted the “manner of speech of their new Prussian neighbours” (Epp,
1993, p. 67). This view is further supported by Penner (1978) ,who claims that the Low
Saxon dialect “wurde genauso in Groningen wie in Danzig gesprochen” (p. 180), and by
Thiessen (1963), who further strengthens this hypothesis by arguing that in the local Low
German dialect of the Vistula delta “aus früheren Zeiten noch sprachliche Reste der
Flamen und Niederländer zurückgeblieben waren” (p. 19).
Although the original varieties Mennonites brought from their native lands, made
a noticeable imprint on the dialectology of the entire Vistula delta (Moelleken, 1992, p.
64), they eventually abandoned the variety they had brought along from the Frisia
Triplex in favour of Plautdietsch - a related local Low German dialect spoken at the heart
of the Vistula delta in the areas called Werders (Danziger Werder, Großes Werder and
Kleines Werder) (Epp, 1993, p. 68). Although this variety ultimately became the primary
spoken language for most Russian Mennonites all over the world, it is not exclusively a
Mennonite dialect and is still spoken by non-Mennonites who at one time lived in or near
the Vistula delta in West Prussia.
3.2.3 The Prussian Period: The Dutch Connection
Although the transition from their native varieties to the local Low German vernacular
took place relatively soon after Mennonite settlements were established in West Prussia,
the Dutch language, used mainly for religious purposes and written communication with
the Netherlands, survived much longer and Mennonites maintained contact with their
Dutch brethren for centuries (Urry, 1989, p. 41).
58
It must be noted, however, that not only Mennonites in Prussia had strong ties
with the Netherlands and that the existing connections were not exclusively of religious
character. Lucrative trade between the major Baltic ports of Danzig and Elbing, and
numerous Dutch and North German cities existed already at the beginning of the
fourteenth century (Mitzka, 1932). Exporting grain and other goods transported down the
Vistula in exchange for luxury items readily bought by the Polish nobility, the Hansa
cities along the Baltic coast acquired great wealth and political power. According to one
source, long after the collapse of the Hanseatic League, between 1585 and 1620, the
number of Dutch ships in the Danzig city port rarely fell below 50% and in 1620 reached
the highest point of 83%. This trade route between Danzig and the Netherlands retained
its pivotal significance well into the eighteenth century (Thiessen, 1963, p. 14). The
flourishing business between West Prussia and the Netherlands was further enhanced by
the fact that much of the trade in the Baltic ports was controlled by Dutch merchants and
Amsterdam was Danzig‟s major trading partner in Western Europe (Urry, 1989, p. 42).
Besides such lively commercial traffic between Prussia and the Netherlands, there
were fruitful scientific and cultural connections between the two countries. For example,
it was customary for many Prussian citizens to attend universities in Leiden, Groningen,
and Utrecht. Similarly, Thiessen claims that of one hundred and thirty-two doctors active
in Danzig in the seventeenth century, more than a third had studied in the Netherlands
(1963, p. 15). Also, according to Smith (1981), “many of the sons of the Danzig
Mennonites went to the Netherlands for an education in a trade” (p. 167).
Ministers of the Mennonite congregations in Prussia were also quite frequently
recruited or educated in the Netherlands, and most of the Mennonite religious literature of
59
the time “was imported from the Old Country and written in Dutch, which remained for
about two hundred years their ritualistic language” (Francis, 1948, p. 103). Thus, the
Bibles used in many Mennonite congregations until the end of the eighteenth century
were Dutch translations by Nikolaes Biestkens, a Mennonite publisher in Emden. His
translation was the first Dutch Bible to introduce paragraph divisions in the text and was
so popular that between the sixteenth century, when it was printed for the first time, and
the end of the seventeenth century the book ran through more than fifty reprints (Smith,
1981, p. 126). The psalms sung during the service, the early catechisms and confessions
of faith (e.g. by Tobias Govertsen, or Lubbert Gerritz and Hans de Ries), as well as the
writings of Mennonite leaders Menno Simons and Dirk Philips, were available in the
Dutch language. It is interesting that in addition to Mennonite ecclesiastical literature
imported from the Netherlands, Dutch hymnals and prayer books were also published in
Haarlem and Alt-Schottland near Danzig12 (Thiessen, 1963, p. 27). Finally, despite the
fact that “West Prussian Mennonites were as a rule not a literary people” (Smith, 1981, p.
174), Martyrs Mirror, a Dutch-language collection of martyrs‟ stories compiled in 1660
by a Mennonite minister at Dordrecht, Thieleman Jansz van Braght, was not translated
into German until 1748-9 and was widely read by the Prussian Mennonites (Urry, 1989,
p. 38).
Considering these strong economic, educational, and religious ties of Prussian
Mennonites with the Netherlands, it is not surprising that the Dutch language survived
among them for close to two hundred years. As a matter of fact, it was so deeply
entrenched there that as late as 1716 a Dutch minister, Hendrik Berents Hulshoff, brought
12
A general discussion of religious literature among Mennonites in Prussia can be found in Friedmann
(1944)
60
from the Netherlands a large order of religious books requested by Mennonite
congregations near Schwetz, Montau, and Schönsee (Duerksen, 1967, p. 108).
A much later example of Mennonite devotedness to the Dutch language was Hans
van Steen (1705-1781), a Prussian-born Mennonite minister who received his education
in Amsterdam and preached as well as kept all records of his Danzig Mennonite Church
exclusively in Dutch. Soon after van Steen‟s death, the congregation switched entirely to
High German, as most other Mennonite churches in Prussia had done already.
3.2.4 Mennonites and High German in Prussia before 1800
In the majority of studies dealing with the languages of the Netherlandic Mennonites,
their encounters with High German are said to have begun in West Prussia in the second
half of the eighteenth century. More precisely, High German is usually mentioned as the
language which Mennonites started to use for religious worship and church recordkeeping, and which eventually completely drove out the Dutch language from the
religious domain.13 This process is usually considered to have started in 1757 with
Lehrer14 Bühler‟s unsuccessful attempt to deliver a sermon in High German in the Great
Werder (e.g. Goerzen, 1972, p. 22) and is usually considered to have come to completion
by the turn of the century (Goerzen, 1972, p. 22; Mitzka, 1930, p. 10; Moelleken, 1992, p.
66; Neufeld, 1955, p. 229; Thiessen, 1963, p. 27; Urry, 1989, p. 45).
13
Although usually Dutch or High German are seen as the languages of the Mennonite churches in Prussia,
some authors mention that at times individual Mennonite congregations, especially of the Frisian branch,
used Low German during their services (e.g. Epp, 1993, p. 72; Friesen, 1989a, p. 45; Penner, 1978, p. 178).
14
Lehrer (teachers) were Mennonite ministers, “whose function was to do much of the teaching and
preaching in the congregation and in general to assist the Ältester [Elder] in directing the congregation”
(Friesen, 1989a, p. 44).
61
It is noteworthy, however, that in most of the aforementioned studies High
German is mentioned exclusively as the new language of the Mennonite church, and only
the dates when individual congregations started to preach and/or keep church books in
High German instead of Dutch are usually given (e.g. Duerksen, 1967). This usually
creates impression that High German was a strange and completely unfamiliar language
to the Prussian Mennonites, who never came in contact with it until the late 1750s, when
it all of a sudden started to invade their congregations throughout Prussia. Consequently,
the issue of High German in other domains of the Prussian Mennonites‟ life is either
completely ignored or is not given the attention it deserves.
Below, I would like to address briefly the following three questions which may
provide a different perspective on the matter:
 Were Prussian Mennonites unfamiliar with High German at the time of the shift?
 Was High German used in Mennonite churches before they officially abandoned
Dutch as the ritualistic language?
 Was High German used by Mennonites in Prussia in other domains besides religion
during and before the shift?
Searching for answers to these questions, I was surprised to find out that several wellknown scholars have effectively argued that High German did exist among Mennonites
long before the second half of the eighteenth century in both written and spoken form,
and that it was used by groups of Mennonites for religious matters much earlier than the
late 1750s. For example, speaking about the languages of early Anabaptists in the Frisia
Triplex, Epp mentions that “there is no reason to conclude that High German was ever
nonexistent among Netherlandic Mennonites” (1993, p. 53). In fact, it has been
62
frequently pointed out that during the first period of the Mennonite movement, they
absorbed a great number of Anabaptist refugees streaming to the Netherlands from other
parts of the Holy Roman Empire (Francis, 1948, p. 103). Penner (1978) also points out
that besides the Netherlands and Switzerland, Anabaptism also existed “in allen
deutschen Landen” (p. 178), where the followers of the new religion were also threatened
with death. It is therefore not completely illogical to assume that among these numerous
refugees there were speakers of High German as well as people who were literate in it.
Indeed, a number of authors also mentioned the High German speaking Anabaptist
refugees joining the Mennonites in the Frisia Triplex (e.g. Dyck, 1964, p. 4; Smith, 1981,
p. 112). Epp also claims that in the sixteenth century some refugees among Mennonites
“could and did write in High German” (1993, p. 54), which was then called
“Overlandsch” (Unruh, 1955, p. 79).
Further, although all West Prussian lands were ceded to Poland after the Peace of
Thorn in 1466, “the High German legacy of the Teutonic Order remained a strong
influence even under Polish sovereignty” and the chancelleries (offices of administration)
of all cities except Danzig had changed to use of High German by 1500 (Epp, 1993, p.
75). Danzig, one of the most powerful Hanseatic cities, retained Low Saxon, the official
written language of the League, for another half a century before also yielding to High
German. Therefore, High German was the official language of the Mennonites‟ new
homeland at the time of their emigration from the Frisia Triplex, and the leaders of
individual groups of migrating Mennonites must have had at least passive knowledge of
it.
63
Although Epp is certainly correct in claiming that Mennonite farmers living on
the land remained relatively unaffected by High German as the official language (1993, p.
71), the elders of the Mennonite church as well as those involved in the administration of
their settlements must have developed some knowledge of High German over the years.
Mennonites constantly had to reinsure their charters and continuously fought for their
religious rights with the local rulers, who were “strangely inconsistent through the
centuries in their policies toward the Mennonites” (Smith, 1981, pp. 169-170).
When we consider the shift to High German as the language of worship, two
generally accepted tendencies must be mentioned: firstly, in the rural Mennonite churches
High German was accepted sooner than in the urban congregations (e.g. Smith, 1981, p.
167); secondly, the switch to High German as the language of religion took place earlier
among the Frisians than among the Flemish (Epp, 1993, p. 72). The first tendency might
be explained by the fact that urban churches were able to maintain contact with the Dutch
congregations longer than the churches in the countryside (Duerksen, 1967, p. 109). The
eagerness of the Frisians to accept High German was most likely caused by great
numbers of High German speaking refugees, referred to as the „Upper Germans‟ („die
Oberländer‟), who joined them soon after emigrating to West Prussia (Penner, 1978, p.
178).
The issue of High German in the Frisian congregations was also dealt with by
Penner (1978), who examined a number of letters from the elders of the Frisian churches
in Prussia to their sister churches in Amsterdam written between 1671 and 1678 in the
High German language. In one of them, the elders of the Orlofferfeld congregation ask
their Dutch brethren for help after extensive flooding they had suffered. This leads
64
Penner to conclude that High German was the primary written language in the Frisian
churches already then, since the elders of the Danzig church would not have written a
petition to Amsterdam in High German if they could also write in Dutch (p. 179). Epp
(1993) also shares this view (p. 72). Moreover, according to a contemporary author, in
the early seventeenth century during their services the Frisians sang “Psalmen und andere
lutherische Lieder” (Hartwick, 1719, p. 290 f.), which at that time were available in
German only (Penner, 1978, p. 179).
The historical events surrounding this shift in the language of worship among the
more conservative Flemish congregations are well documented (e.g. Duerksen, 1967;
Mannhardt, 1919) and the following dates are usually mentioned in this regard:
1757 – Lehrer Bühler delivers a High German sermon in the Great Werder. The
attempt is ill-received by the congregation;
1762 – A guest speaker from the Elbing Mennonite church requests permission to
preach in High German in a Flemish church in Danzig because of his
insufficient knowledge of Dutch;
1767 – Another High German sermon is delivered in Danzig by a guest speaker from
the Heubuden church;
1767 – The first High German hymnal is printed in Königsberg;
1768 – The Danzig Flemish church stops using Dutch for entries in the church
record books;
1771 – A Danzig preacher uses High German for the first time;
1781 – Hans von Steen, the last pro-Dutch elder of the Danzig Flemish church, dies.
Three years later the congregation switches entirely to High German.
65
Although the above-mentioned dates are facts of history, it must be kept in mind that they
designate events in relation to the urban Flemish Mennonite congregations, which are
known to have held on to the Dutch language much longer than the other Mennonite
congregations in Prussia. Considering that at the end of the eighteenth century the total
number of Mennonites in the Vistula and Nogat deltas of West Prussia was around twelve
thousand persons (Smith, 1981, p. 179) and that at its peak the total Mennonite
population in Danzig numbered slightly over one thousand (p. 176), it can be said that
more than 90% of Prussian Mennonite congregations had already switched to High
German by that time.
Yet even in the case of urban Flemish churches, there is evidence that High
German started to make its way into their congregations already in the seventeenth
century. Thus, it is known that several religious texts intended to be frequently used by
the Mennonite congregation had been written in High German already then. Examples of
these are the High German catechism and confession of faith written in 1671 by Georg
Hansen, an elder of the Flemish Mennonite church in Danzig (Smith, 1981, p. 174).
Since Hansen was also proficient in Dutch and authored several books in this language
(Smith, 1981, p. 174), it can be argued that he would not have written the abovementioned religious texts in High German if everyone in his congregation prefered
Dutch. This view is supported by Duerksen (1967), according to whom Hansen wrote in
the same year that “the young people of the Heubuden Mennonite church could write
German better than Dutch” (p. 108). This is quite peculiar since, as already mentioned,
the Flemish branch of Mennonites is considered to have switched to High German
significantly later than the Frisian congregations.
66
On a similar note, Penner gives an account of entries in a Danzig Flemish family
Bible, in which the records made in the 1730s were written “mit deutschen
Beimischungen in holländischer Sprache” (1978, p. 180). Yet a decade later the same
speaker wrote in New High German (Neuhochdeutsch), which Penner considers his
vernacular and claims that “es war damals bei den Flamen ein Übergangszustand” (p.
180). Hence, according to this scholar, the process of transition to High German among
the Flemish Mennonites was already well on its way in the 1730s-1740s.
Further, there is evidence that individual Flemish churches started using High
German in their services before the second half of the eighteenth century. For example, it
is reported that when Gerard Wiebe, an elder at the Elbing Mennonite church, was invited
to preach in the Flemish Mennonite church in Danzig in 1762, he requested permission to
deliver the sermon in High German because of his insufficient command of Dutch
(Mannhardt, 1919). This incident has been interpreted as evidence that “the Elbing
congregation had been using the German in worship services for quite some time”
(Duerksen, 1967, p. 108).
Lastly, after the first partition of Poland in 1772, when almost all Mennonites
along the Nogat and Vistula rivers found themselves under Prussian rule, High German
became the default language of school instruction (Friesen, 1989a, p. 45,) and this clearly
contributed to the general process of assimilation “to the uniform German culture”
(Francis, 1948, p. 104) which eventually made Mennonites “not culturally distinct from
other groups of West Prussian Germans” (Francis, 1948, p. 104). Hence, by the end of the
eighteenth century, High German became the Mennonites‟ official, school, and church
language (Moelleken, 1992, p. 66). Undoubtedly, some Mennonites, especially those with
67
auniversity education or tradesmen active in the Prussian towns and cities, were using
High German for everyday communication already then. Discussing these times, Postma
mentions that after 1772 Mennonites in Prussia felt more and more German and that the
afflictions of the Napoleonic wars “brachten die Gemeinden zueinander und machten die
Mennoniten in Preußen zu völlig deutschbewussten Menschen” (1959, p. 170).
Therefore, considering these arguments, the following conclusions can be drawn:
1. Forms of High German were always present among Mennonites, albeit to a
moderate degree compared to the other varieties, and were used for both spoken and
written purposes at least by a part of the group.
2. Although the process of transition from Dutch to High German came to
completion in urban Flemish churches in the final decades of the eighteenth century,
it probably began about a century before that. It is also quite possible that members
of the Frisian congregations always used High German alongside other languages for
a wide range of purposes including written communication and religious services.
3. High German was the administrative language of almost all Prussian lands at the
time when Mennonites migrated there from the Frisia Triplex. Since then it has been
slowly gaining importance, ultimately becoming the sole language of culture,
religion, commerce, and education for all Prussian citizens, including Mennonites.
3.2.5 On the Way to Russia
When in 1772 Poland was partitioned by Russia, Austria, and Prussia, and most
Mennonites of the Vistula-Nogat delta and the surrounding areas came under the reign of
Frederick the Great (1740-1786), they were very pleased (Smith, 1981, p. 177). Having a
68
more liberal set of mind than his predecessors, Frederick gave Mennonites complete
religious freedom, permitting a possibility to engage in any trade or pursue any kind of
business, and rights equal to those of other citizens of Prussia. In exchange, Mennonites
had to pay an annual sum of five thousand thaler as compensation to the Military
Academy at Culm. Although restrictions on buying new land had been imposed on
Mennonites by an earlier regulation, they were not enforced during Frederick‟s reign
(Smith, 1981, p. 177) and Mennonites in the delta “prospered despite all adversities”
(Klippenstein, 1989, p. 15).
These relatively peaceful and, for many, favourable times were not to last long.
Relations with the government worsened steadily, especially after Frederick‟s son
Frederick William II succeeded to the throne in 1786. A number of new regulations
against Mennonites were issued concerning exemption from military service and
strengthening of the existing restrictions on purchasing and selling land. As Urry states,
these policies did not only challenge Mennonite faith but also “threatened the
continuance of Mennonite communities and their preferred mode of life” (1989, p. 48).
As a result, in the early 1780s many Mennonites were already willing to emigrate,
especially “the landless and the poor” (Epp, 1993, p. 77) who would not be able to
improve their economic situation in Prussia.
It was approximately at this time that the invitation from the tsarina of Russia
Catherine the Great (1729-1796) to settle in her empire reached the Prussian Mennonites.
Herself of German descent, Catherine was driven by the desire to populate the steppes of
the newly acquired territories to the north of the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov with
industrious farmers. Thus, the Tsarina offered prospective settlers “most liberal
69
inducements such as free land in abundance, free transportation and support until such
time as the settlers would be established in their own homes, tax exemption for a limited
time, exemption from military duty and certain civil obligations, religious toleration, and
wide liberty in establishing such educational and local political institutions as best suited
for their needs” (Smith, 1981, p. 251). Seeing it as an answer to their prayers, many
Mennonites accepted this generous offer and during the following fifty years close to half
of the entire Mennonite population of the delta migrated to the steppes of Southern
Russia.
3.2.6 Summary of the Prussian Period
Mennonite refugees from the Netherlands and parts of Belgium and northern Germany
started to find their way to the West Prussian lands in order to escape religious
persecution in the 1530s, with the major part arriving between the 1540s and the early
seventeenth century. They established numerous settlements in the Vistula-Nogat delta
and were very successful farmers, craftsmen, and traders. The local population among
which Mennonites settled in Prussia spoke a Low Prussian variety of Low Saxon Low
German, which was easily understandable to the Mennonite settlers. After some time they
accepted the local Low German variety called Plautdietsch as their informal language.
Although Dutch held in the Mennonite churches for much longer, and extensive
contact with the Netherlands was maintained for almost two centuries, High German
started to be used increasingly by Mennonites for official and religious purposes. In the
second half of the eighteenth century it permanently drove out the Dutch language from
70
the last Mennonite congregations to use it for worship and became the sole language of
religion and culture.
Around the same time, economic conditions in Prussia became very unfavourable
for Mennonites and their religious freedom was also threatened by militaristic Prussian
rulers. Having received an invitation from Catherine the Great, the Tsarina of Russia, to
settle in the newly acquired territories in the South of the Russian Empire, Mennonites
began to emigrate from Prussia in large numbers.
3.3
Mennonites in Russia
3.3.1
The Migration Process
The migration of Mennonites from Prussia to the Russian Empire took place during three
roughly delineated periods of time: 1788-96, 1804-40, and 1855-73 (Rempel, 1974, p. 6).
The way to the new homeland was pioneered by the poorest members of the Prussian
Mennonites, for whom acquiring land in Prussia was impossible and the emigration,
therefore, was most desirable. Although originally Mennonites made an agreement with
the Russian government to settle in a more southern location near the present day city of
Kherson, upon arrival they were ordered to stay on the right bank of the Dnieper River
some 350 kilometres north from the entrance to the Black Sea. This is where the first two
Mennonite villages in the Russian Empire, Chortitza and Rosenthal, were founded in
1789. The settlement initially consisted of about four hundred families and by 1824 had
developed into eighteen villages which became known as the „Chortitza‟ or the „Old
Colony‟ for its pioneering character (Moelleken, 1992, p. 66). Since the first migrants
belonged exclusively to the Flemish part of the church (Goerzen, 1972, p. 26), which was
71
more hesitant to accept High German, and because most of the first settlers were
uneducated tradesmen leaving Prussia before a general shift to High German as a
vernacular took place, few of them had more than a rudimentary knowledge of it
(Rempel, 1974, p. 3). For this reason, in the first years of the settlement, Plautdietsch was
primarily used for school instruction and religious worship (Epp, 1993, p. 75).
Meanwhile, the remaining Mennonites in Prussia were facing further restrictions
of their religious freedom and were experiencing significant worsening of economic
opportunities. Having heard about a new decree granted to the Chortitza colonists by
Catherine‟s successor Tsar Paul, in which he guaranteed “for both old and new settlers all
the exemptions and privileges granted the original colonists”15 (Smith, 1981, p. 257),
Mennonites left Prussia in even greater numbers. Settling on a tract of land of about three
hundred thousand acres around the river Molotschna, just over 100 kilometres south-east
of Chortitza, in 1803 Mennonites established the „New Colony‟, also known as „the
Molotschna‟. The emigration lasted almost four decades and in just half a century the
colony grew to fifty-seven villages. Unlike the first Mennonites to leave Prussia, most of
the new settlers were well-to-do farmers from the regions of Merienburg and Elbing
(Smith, 1981, p. 258) and were of a higher social standing than the Chortitza Mennonites
(Dyck, 1964, p. 9). They also left Prussia at least a decade and a half later than the first
group and along with Plautdietsch brought with them High German, which by then had
become “the language of the church, the school, and of other cultural and commercial
activities” (Goerzen, 1972, p. 22).
The last period of Mennonite migration to Russia took place around the middle of
the nineteenth century, when the Prussian government finally refused to grant
15
These privileges are in detail discussed by Rempel (1974, pp. 24-28).
72
Mennonites military exemption on religious grounds. Two settlements were founded in
the province of Samara east of the river Volga: the „Am Trakt‟ colony in 1853, and
Alexandertal, also known as Old Samara, in 1859. By the 1870s the colonies consisted of
ten and eight villages respectively. Although Mennonites of these two colonies were
mostly spoke High German, most of them were repressed, exiled or deported to remote
parts of the USSR and hardly any of them came to Canada. Therefore, their contribution
to the overall Mennonite migratory and linguistic developments was rather insignificant
(Moelleken, 1992, p. 66) and they will not be further considered in this study.
3.3.2 Economic and Cultural Development
How successful Mennonites were in Russia is evident from the fact that by 1915 the
number of Mennonites swelled to over 100,000 (Dyck, 1964, p. 12) and comprised 20%
of the entire German population in the country (Goerzen, 1972, p. 23). As the Mennonite
population grew, additional stretches of land were purchased by the primary (mother)
colonies for the younger generations, and numerous daughter colonies, such as Bergthal
(1836), Borsenko (1870), Fürstenland (1864), and Karassan (1862) sprang up. In the late
nineteenth century the total number of Mennonite villages in Russia numbered
approximately four hundred (Rempel, 1974, p. 2).
Further, according to several accounts, of all the foreign colonists brought to
Russia by Catherine the Great, the Mennonites were “the most successful in every field of
farming and industry, and perhaps also in commerce” (Rempel, 1974, p. 18). Thus, as
Francis writes, “nine factories in Southern Russia with nearly 2000 labourers, whose
output in agricultural machinery amounted to as much as seven percent of Russia‟s total
73
production, were owned and managed by Mennonites” (1955, p. 194). Another highly
favourable account of Mennonite colonies belongs to a German traveller, Lindeman, who
visited the Mennonite settlements at the end of the nineteenth century and published his
experiences under the title Von den deutschen Kolonisten in Rußland (1924).
One reason for this great success was the privileged position of Mennonites as
model farmers and the near autonomous status of their settlements regarding internal
affairs (Moelleken, 1992, p. 68), which has led some scholars to refer to the Mennonite
colonies in Russia as “a state within a state” (Smith, 1981, p. 284). Closed and semiclosed villages thus became not only local administrative units (Friesen, 1989b, p. 11) but
also the social setting in which almost every Mennonite in Russia grew up, and which to
a large extent determined the Mennonite identity of an individual (Urry, 1989, pp. 57-58).
It is the world of villages and colonies that allowed Russian Mennonites to live
completely independently of the local population and “to maintain separate minority
identity not only against their Russian neighbours but also against the German colonists,
be they Lutheran or Catholic” (Rempel, 1974, p. 5).
The educational system established by Mennonites in Russia was another great
success. Even the first Mennonite settlers in Russia, who stemmed from the lower social
class and lacked educated leaders, were strongly committed to perpetuating schools for
their children‟s basic education. Within the first year or two they established elementary
schools in every village (Ens, 1989, p. 75). With time, the Mennonite school system was
expanded and underwent a number of reforms, most notably under the influence of
Johann Cornies (1789-1848), and resulted in an “excellent school system of elementary
schools, high schools for boys and girls, business schools, and three year normal schools”
74
(Dyck, 1964, p. 13). Towards the end of the nineteenth century it was also not unusual for
Mennonites from Russia to pursue graduate studies at prestigious Russian and West
European (especially German) universities and teacher training institutions (Epp, 1993, p.
76). Thus, around the year 1900, 1.5% of all Mennonites in Russia had a university
education, which was a very high percentage in comparison with the Russian population
(Smith, 1981, p. 271).
3.3.3 High German among Mennonites in Russia in the 19th century
As mentioned in the previous section, the majority of Mennonites in Prussia were quite
hesitant to accept High German in religious services, especially so the Flemish branch of
the church. Therefore, for a few decades after the Old Colony was established in 1789,
the first settlers, exclusively of the Flemish affiliation, lacked qualified teachers who
were able to teach or preach in High German. The schools therefore used Plautdietsch as
the medium of instruction and religious texts in High German as teaching materials (Ens,
1989, p. 75). Church services were initially held in Low German as well (Epp, 1993, p.
75).
Yet relatively soon Frisian Mennonites from Prussia, who had a much higher
High German-speaking contingent, and who had switched to High German as the
language of the church at least several decades before the Flemish wing, also settled in
the Chortitza Colony and established their own villages and congregations. According to
Urry, by 1800 Frisians accounted for almost 25% of all Mennonites in Russia (1989, p.
67). Since throughout their entire history both Frisian and Flemish parties frequently
banned and excommunicated their own members and at the same time accepted (often by
75
rebaptizing) those who left the other branch, a few Frisians proficient in High German
must have come to the Flemish villages and schools then.
The Mennonites who formed the Molotschna settlements in 1803 had been more
exposed to the Prussian education system and, consequently, to the High German
language. They removed “some of the mistrust of higher education” (Ens, 1989, p. 77)
and serious efforts to teach High German to the Mennonite children and uses it as the
primary language of instructions were made in both colonies in the 1820s (Epp, 1993, pp.
76, 82). The fact that High German was held in extremely high esteem among
Mennonites in Russia is demonstrated by the fact that they not only requested trained
Mennonite teachers proficient in High German from Prussia, but in the early nineteenth
century started to engage for this purpose local High German speakers of other faiths,
usually Lutherans possessing more or less adequate qualifications (Epp, 1993, p. 82;
Urry, 1989, p. 156). This detail is much more important than it might seem at first. Since
even minor technical differences were felt by the Mennonites to be serious enough to
keep them split into Frisian and Flemish for more than two centuries, allowing nonMennonites to educate their children just so that the education could be conducted in
High German, can have only been caused by the importance associated with the
language.
The teaching materials used in the Mennonite schools also show how their usage
of High German increased through the years. While in the first several decades in Russia
the only textbooks used by the Mennonites were religious texts, such as the Luther Bible
and a catechism, in addition to a simple primer (Ens, 1989, p. 75), in the 1820s textbooks
were imported from Germany (Urry, 1989, p. 262). Towards the end of the century
76
Mennonites started to produce their own books, sometimes even together with other
German colonists, for example Unruh & Wilhelm‟s Deutsches Lesebuch für
mennonitische und lutherische Elementarschulen in Russland (1895), printed in a
Mennonite publishing house in the Molotschna. Thus in the first half of the nineteenth
century High German had replaced Low German wherever it was still used in instruction
among Mennonites in Russia, and although the majority of them were “not entirely
competent in High German” (Urry, 1989, p. 71), with time it became gradually embraced
“as „their‟ written language” (Epp, 1993, p. 86).
Another tendency - namely using High German as the official medium of
administration - arose soon after the first Mennonites came to Russia. By 1800, all
official correspondence between Mennonites and the Russian government agencies was
to be conducted in “the „dialect‟ of the colonists which for the Mennonites meant High
German” (Urry, 1989, p. 71). This practice, as Rempel notes, “much to the annoyance
and frequent anger of many Russian officials” (1974, p. 4) was not generally abandoned
until the late 1860s. It was during these years that High German firmly established itself
as the default language of the internal Mennonite administration.
Another strong factor contributing to the status of High German as the prestigious
language of culture was the large number of High German-speaking families belonging to
the Groningen Old Flemish congregation who in 1834 moved to the Molotschna colony
and founded the village of Gnadenfeld. Urry also mentions a number of “wealthy,
cultured families” representing the leading Mennonite merchant dynasties in Prussia, who
immigrated to Russia from the 1820s onward, “married only among themselves and
spoke only High German” (1989, p. 142).
77
In terms of printed culture, it must be mentioned that in Russia High German
always remained the dominant language of the written page. Already around 1850
Mennonites did not only subscribe to but also contributed articles and figured
prominently in many German-language periodicals published in Russia, such as the
Unterhaltungsblatt für deutsche Ansiedler im südlichen Russland, or the Odessaer
Zeitung, both published in Odessa. In addition to other periodicals published by Germans
in Russia such as the St. Peterburger Zeitung, Mennonites also “subscribed to journals
from abroad and purchased practical and religious books from dealers in the Baltic ports
of Revel and Riga or through agents in Odessa” (Urry, 1989, p. 167).
Besides secular literature, the reading of which was often discouraged by church
leaders, Mennonites were interested in religious matters and “purchased many religious
texts, especially the sermon collections of German and English evangelical preachers”
(Urry, 1989, p. 270), such as Eduard Hofacker. Study groups, which discussed a wide
range of religious literature of both Mennonite and non-Mennonite traditions were
usually organized around Mennonite ministers and existed in both colonies. Towards the
end of the nineteenth century, Mennonites in Russia also started to produce their own
publications, mainly discussing their religion and history, such as Hildebrand (1888), Epp
(1889) or Jacob Toews‟s German translation of Alexander Klaus‟s account of German
colonies in southern Russia Unsere Kolonien (1887).
3.3.4 Russian Mennonites and the Russian Language
It can be said that the Russian Mennonite exposure to the Russian language began with an
attempt to russify “all foreign elements in the country, especially the German colonists
78
near the Black Sea” (Buchheit, 1978, p. 16) as a part of the reforms undertaken by the
Russian government between 1861 and 1881.
The need for the russification of the Mennonites was caused by the fact that for
about a hundred years after the first Mennonites settled in Russia their contact with the
local Slavic population was very limited and was usually that of “master or boss to a
labourer” (Rempel, 1974, p. 5). Consequently, Russian played a relatively minor role in
the lives of most Mennonites at least until the closing decades of the nineteenth century.
According to P. M. Friesen (1911b), for example, as late as 1874 Mennonites understood
of the Russian language “only a very tiny little piece and that only of the profane market
dialect. Of the Russian literature or indeed its ethical value or theological treasures they
knew about as much as we do about the literature of the Armenians or Georgians” (pp.
593-594).
According to the new policy, Mennonite schools were now to be overseen by the
Russian Ministry of Education, and the Russian language was to be introduced as the
main medium of instruction. Luckily, these policies were fully implemented only for a
short period of time and generally gave the Mennonite educational system a strong
impulse to improve with a number of long-term benefits (Ens, 1989, pp. 84-85).
Nevertheless, as a result of the proposed reforms, approximately “30 per cent of the total
Mennonite population in the Ukraine” (Francis, 1955, p. 28), or 15,000 to 18,000
Mennonites, left Russia for Canada and the United States in the mid-1870s. Despite of
this, the results of the Russification policy were far-reaching and have positively affected
the Mennonites remaining in Russia. Mennonite secondary schools took the ukase very
seriously, and already in 1888 in all three of the Molotschna secondary schools all
79
disciplines except for German and religion were taught in Russian (Friesen, 1911b, p.
745). Also, from the 1870s onwards a number of Mennonites were sent to Moscow and
St. Petersburg to improve their Russian, and native Russian teachers were appointed to
the secondary schools (Urry, 1989, pp. 244-245). Russian was also adopted as a subject
in most Mennonite village schools in 1874, and in some of these schools arithmetic and
other subjects were taught in Russian between 1884 and 1896 (Friesen, 1911b, p. 806;
Moelleken, 1992, p. 70). But despite this, Russian still remained “an elusive subject to all
but a few Mennonites” (Moelleken, 1992, p. 70) until 1938, when it became the default
language of school instruction, and all texts in German were confiscated and usage of
German even for informal purposes was forbidden and prosecuted.
Another direct outcome of the reforms was a certain degree of Russian patriotism
noticeable among the Mennonites towards the end of the nineteenth century. For
example, according to Urry, after 1870 Mennonites “developed a more sophisticated
understanding of the Tsar, his government, the Russian state, and the concept of being a
citizen of a modern nation-state. The Mennonite leadership came to see themselves as
loyal subjects of the Tsar and citizens of Russia” (1989, p. 256). In this connection, it is
interesting to note that in 1889, in a speech presented during the celebrations of the
hundredth anniversary of the Chortitza colony, my own great-great-grandfather, Peter
Johann Penner, a teacher in the Chortitza village school, “emphasized the importance of
learning Russian, for it was the language in which the “spirit of the people” (Geist des
Volkes) was to be found, and Mennonites needed to become more aware of the genius of
the Russian people” ("Koloniales Hundertjäriges Jubiläum der Chortitzer
Mennonitenkolonien," 1889; Urry, 1989, p. 268).
80
3.3.5 High German in the Early 20th Century
Another remarkable outcome of the Russification policy of the 1870s was the fact that a
large number of the Mennonites began to view the Russian language as an immediate
threat which put the existence of their communities and the preservation of Mennonite
culture in question. Thus, Mennonites started to put “more emphasis on [High] German to
preserve their non-Russian identity” (Epp, 1993, p. 82) and it was in response to the
reforms that “a cultural German consciousness developed among these Flemo-Frisians”
(Goerzen, 1972, p. 22). Thus, by the time the first wave of Mennonites left Russia, High
German had already become the language firmly associated with Mennonite faith and
was considered both “the language of their forbears” (Moelleken, 1992, p. 78) and
something “necessary for their survival as the church” (Dyck, 1993, p. 409). These
feelings indeed became stronger with each subsequent wave of Mennonite emigration
from Russia.
Although Plautdietsch continued to be the primary spoken language of the
majority of Mennonites, “there was a general tendency to achieve a refinement suggested
by High German” (Dyck, 1964, p. 14) and its usage was “fostered actively by the
Mennonite authorities” (Moelleken, 1992, p. 69). In the 1920s, approximately one in ten
Mennonite families was using High German as an everyday language (Quiring, 1928, p.
47).16 The Plautdietsch speaking families, however, also used High German in the home
16
When stating the percentage of High German speaking Mennonite families in Russia, Quiring writes it
down as “1/10 %” . Interpreting this number as „one tenth of a percent‟ does not seem reasonable, as it
would indicate that only one in a thousand Mennonite families was speaking High German. If this were
true, such a negligible number would most likely not even be mentioned. Reading it as „one tenth‟ seems
much more realistic, and I believe this is the number Quiring was trying to convey.
81
“in the reading of the Luther Bible, and of periodicals and literatures, and in prayer”
(Goerzen, 1972, p. 22).
3.3.6 Emigration from Russia
As had already been the case with the Mennonites in Prussia, in less than a century the
government changed its attitude towards them and started to disregard some of its own
earlier resolutions. Thus, in the 1870s the Tsarist government made a serious attempt to
gain control over Mennonite schools, to introduce the use of Russian, and to put an end to
their exemption from military service. As a result, almost all Mennonites immediately
expressed a desire to emigrate. Yet several weeks later, when a reasonable agreement
with the Adjutant-General Totleben, who had been delegated by the government “to
forestall any possible mass exodus by seeking a compromise with the Mennonites” (Epp,
1993, p. 84), was achieved, two thirds of them were persuaded to stay. The other third, or
between 15,000 and 18,000 Mennonites, consisting of the most conservative elements of
the Chortitza and two of its daughter colonies, emigrated to North America. Of this
number, approximately 7,500 Mennonites came to Canada, where the government
granted them “special privileges in setting up semi-autonomous colonies with their own
schools and village administration” in the prairie provinces (Moelleken, 1992, p. 77).
The remaining Mennonites in Russia continued to prosper for the next four
decades, but with the October Revolution in 1917 their position became at best uncertain,
and some years later outright hopeless. As wealthy colonists of non-Russian ethnicity,
most Mennonites were robbed of most of their possessions, Mennonite villages were
raided and plundered, and their inhabitants were murdered in great numbers, especially
82
during the chaotic years of the Civil War (1917-1923). Of the surviving Mennonites,
21,000 escaped to Canada and 4,000 to South America between 1921 and 1930.
The story of those Mennonites who stayed in the Soviet Union after 1930 is a
rather depressing one. Most men were sent into exile or arrested and executed during the
Stalinist repressions of the 1930s. Churches had been closed and forbidden in the late
1920s already, and in the late 1930s it became illegal and dangerous even to speak
German in public. A temporary relief came in 1941, when they were overrun by the
German Wehrmacht, but this ended two years later with the advance of the SovietArmy.
Approximately 36,000 Mennonites left their villages and fled to the West with the
retreating German Army. Two thirds of these Mennonite refugees either perished during
the war or were captured by the Soviets and exiled to Siberia and Central Asia soon after.
Only about 12,000 Mennonites found their way from the Allied zones of Germany to
Canada and South America in the decades following the end of World War II, with
approximately the same number of Mennonites coming to each continent. However, some
of those Mennonites who migrated first to South America eventually settled in Canada a
decade or two later.
3.4
Mennonites in Canada
3.4.1
The First Migration Wave
The first group of Mennonites came to Canada between 1873 and 1876 and was about
7,500 people strong. It consisted of the most conservative elements of the Old Colony,
and two of its economically weakest daughter settlements, Bergthal and Fürstenland.
83
These first migrants settled almost exclusively in the prairie province of Manitoba, in the
valley of the Red River, where they tried to recreate the rural lifestyle they were used to
from Russia. Two decades later, the first daughter settlements were established in the
province of Saskatchewan. By 1901 their numbers had increased to 19,530 (Goerzen,
1972, p. 57).
Hardly any of the first-wave Mennonites had any knowledge of English, and
contact with Canadians was discouraged and usually kept to a minimum. As a result,
during the first several decades English was practically non-existent among the
Mennonites. High German was still, just like it had been in Russia, the official language
of the church and the school and “remained their clear H variety” (Moelleken, 1992, p.
78). It must be added, though, that because of the conservative religious views of the first
settlers, education above the elementary level was discouraged and little attention was
paid to literature and popular culture.
Following the same pattern as the Prussian rulers between the sixteenth and the
nineteenth centuries, and the Russian Tsarist government in the nineteenth century, after
several decades the Canadian authorities disregarded their initial agreement with the
Mennonites and in 1914 started a process of general Anglicization of the Canadian school
system (Moelleken, 1992, p. 78). By 1919 school instruction in High German was
forbidden and all schools which did not abide by the government‟s decrees were closed
down.
Since for many Mennonites “Vaterglaube und deutsche Sprache waren ... zu
einem Begriff zusammengewachsen“ (Thiessen, 1963, p. 28), the denial of their right to
use High German to educate their children was taken extremely seriously, especially so
84
by the more conservative Mennonites. Starting in the same year, approximately 8,000
Russian Mennonites left the Canadian prairies for Mexico, where the local government
once again promised them complete religious freedom and a great degree of cultural
autonomy.
The remaining Mennonites in Canada conformed to the demands of Canadian
authorities and accepted English as the language of school instruction. Since Canadian
Mennonites themselves did not have knowledge of the English language and, unlike
Mennonites in Russia, had not established a system of teacher preparatory schools, there
were far more Canadian-trained than Mennonite instructors, and the young generation of
Mennonites soon accepted the alternative of English as the primary language. Thus, the
displacement of High German from its superior position as the H-variety had begun.
3.4.2 The Second Migration Wave
At roughly the same time a new influx of Mennonites from Russia arrived in Canada, this
time some 21,000 strong. Approximately 3,000 of these people stayed in Eastern Canada,
predominantly in Southern Ontario (Goerzen, 1972, p. 60). A large part of this group of
immigrants settled in the cities (Dyck, 1964, p. 21) and brought a much more positive
attitude toward education than was common among the first-wave Mennonite
immigrants. The second-wave Mennonites had enjoyed close to half a century of
education in well-prepared Mennonite primary and secondary schools in Russia; they
“stood out in their mastery of the [High] German and Russian languages” (Epp, 1993, p.
85), and were generally more “sophisticated” (Dyck, 1964, p. 21) than their Canadian cobelievers.
85
Many aspects of the first-wave Mennonites‟ and their descendants‟ culture
seemed strange to the newcomers from Russia, who referred to the earlier Mennonite
immigrants as „die Kanadier‟ (the Canadians), and, in their turn, received the name „die
Rußländer‟ (the Russians). Cultural differences between the groups were so significant
that each group tended to live in clusters of its own people and “die Kanadier and
Russländer, in general, have hardly influenced each other‟s language” (Dyck, 1964, p.
72).
The second-wave immigrants, who had been already exposed to a foreign culture
and increased contacts with non-Mennonites, were quite eager to acquire English and
sent their children to Canadian public schools (Moelleken, 1992, p. 79). Being fluent in
Plautdietsch, they at the same time maintained the highest regard “for High German as
the vehicle of a greater cultural heritage which they considered their own” (Dyck, 1964,
p. 96) and continued the use of High German in their churches. As previously mentioned,
many more families of the second-wave immigrants were now using a form of High
German as the main language of their families. The high prestige attributed to High
German manifests itself in the fact that the older generation of the second-wave
immigrants often spoke Plautdietsch to each other but would use only High German when
talking to their children (Moelleken, 1992, pp. 79-80).
3.4.3 The Third Migration Wave
The last group of Russian Mennonites to reach Canada came to the North American
continent after the end of World War II. This was the group that had been exposed to the
most bitter Russification under Stalin and had transferred their resentment to the Russian
86
language (Moelleken, 1992, p. 80). All eight thousand of the third-wave immigrants to
Canada had lived under the German military government since 1943 and stayed in
Germany for several years at least. All of them were fluent in High German, while many
were using Plautdietsch for informal communication. Having suffered much from antiGerman feelings in Russia, and usually having been looked down upon because of their
Russian refugee status in Germany, the last group of Mennonites was most willing to
assimilate to mainstream Canadian culture, to the extent that many first-generation
immigrants have now adopted English as the primary family language.
High German, strengthened through the new wave of immigrants, survived as the
only language of the Mennonite church in Canada for another several decades until the
young generation of Mennonites, which had acquired some High German in the Sunday
schools but was more fluent in English, introduced some English services.
Understandably, with time, English took precedence and ultimately replaced High
German in the church. The process of transition from German to English is said to have
been largely completed by 1990 (Dyck, 1993, p. 409). Today there are still occasional
High German services offered by some Mennonite churches here and there, but
considering the increasing difficulty finding German-speaking ministers and the rapid
aging of the German-speaking Mennonites (almost exclusively first-generation
immigrants), the Mennonite connection to the High German language in Canada will end
permanently in the course of the next fwq years.
.
87
4.
METHODOLOGY
This chapter presents the major methodological procedures used in this project. It starts
by describing the two sets of spoken data and the interviewees and briefly compares the
two groups to each other. Section 4.3 provides information on the software and the
notation system used for transcribing the data and linking the transcriptions to the
digitized interview recordings. The next section (4.4) describes how the categories for
structural and sociolinguistic analysis of the data were developed and how the data were
subsequently coded and analyzed. Sections 4.5 and 4.6 provide details about the
structural and sociolinguistic analysis of the interviews. The chapter closes with a brief
summary.
4.1
The Data
4.1.1 Data Set I
The primary data used in this study consist of two sets of audio-recorded interviews with
Russian Mennonites of the second and the third migration waves, who immigrated to
Canada from the southern parts of the Soviet Union during the two decades following the
end of World War I and World War II respectively. In its entirety, the first set is a
compilation of eighty-two interviews in English, Plautdietsch, and High German
conducted between 1976 and 1978 by Henry Paetkau and Stan Dueck, at the time
graduate students of history at the University of Waterloo. The interviews were
conducted as a part of an oral history project under the supervision of Walter Klaassen.
Both interviewers are descendants of Mennonite immigrants from Russia; both are fluent
88
in English, Plautdietsch, and High German and were recognized by the participants as a
part of the group.17 While the interviewers knew some of the participants personally,
they located the majority of the interviewees through the ministers of local Mennonite
congregations, who are traditionally held in very high regard.
In the summer of 2007 I digitized these audio-taped interviews, which are stored
at the Mennonite Archives of Ontario at Conrad Grebel University College. Each
recording is accompanied with a biographical sketch of the interviewee(s), a brief
summary of the interview with a time stamp in minutes, and additional information, such
as the date and place of the interview, the language(s) in which the interview was
conducted etc. An example of such an accompanying sheet is presented in Figure 4-1
From this set of eighty-two interviews, thirty-seven were conducted in English,
twenty in Plautdietsch, and twenty-five in High German. Of the last, twenty-one
interviews conducted in Southern Ontario (thirteen by Henry Paetkau, and eight by Stan
Dueck) are considered in this study. The other four interviews conducted in High German
with participants in Manitoba were excluded from this study because the conditions of
Russian Mennonites in Manitoba differed significantly from those of the other Russian
Mennonite enclaves in Canada (mostly British Columbia and Ontario) (Moelleken, 1994,
pp. 307-308) and the linguistic situation of the last “cannot be equated with the one
prevailing in Manitoba” (Moelleken, 1992, p. 81). This decision also made the two sets of
data more comparable to each other since all participants in the second set were located in
Southern Ontario.
17
Today Henry Paetkau is the President of Conrad Grebel University College. In an informal meeting in
March 2008 Mr. Paetkau provided me with much background information on the interviews as well as the
methodology of his project.
89
Figure 4-1
The interviewees in the first set are seventeen men and four women, all of whom
were born in Mennonite colonies in Southern Russia between 1884 and 1907 and settled
in Canada between 1924 and 1931. The length of the interviews varies from forty-two
90
minutes to two hours and the number of participants in each interview did not exceed two
persons.
Number of interviews:
21
Number of participants:
21 ( female: 4; male: 17)
Year of birth:
1884-1907
Year of immigration:
1924-1930
Interview length:
42-121 min.
Total number of interview minutes:
1966 min. (37 hours 46 minutes)
Place of residence in Russia:
Colony:
Chortitza (total of 2)
Villages of:
Chortitza (1)
Osterwick (1)
Colony:
Molotschna (total of 16)
Private estates:
(5)
Villages of:
Mariewohl (Gnadenfeld) (3)
Fischau (2)
Neuenstiess (1)
Nikolaidorf (1)
Rückenau (1)
Schoenbrunn (1)
Schoenfeld (1)
Tiegerweide (1)
Colony:
Schlachtin-Baratov (total of 1)
Village of:
not specified
Colony:
Zagradovka (total of 1)
Villages of:
Reinfeld (1)
Colony not specified:
Neuenstiess (1)
Place of residence in Ontario:
Kitchener-Waterloo (5)
Leamington (6)
New Hamburg (1)
Niagara-on-the-lake (1)
St. Catharine‟s (7)
Vineland (1)
Table 4-1: Summary of the High German interviews in the 1976-1978 interviews set
91
All interviews are semi-structured and were conducted in the residences of the
interviewees in an informal, almost conversational manner, which was also the intention
of the interviewers (personal communication with Henry Paetkau, March 2007). As both
interviewers were proficient in English, High German, and Plautdietsch, the choice of the
interview language was left to the participants.
Although this set of interviews presents a lot of valuable information on Russian
Mennonite immigrants of the second wave and certainly sheds much light on their spoken
language, the interviews do not directly deal with matters of interest to a linguist and
concentrate primarily on historical events and religious matters. Typically, each interview
in this set covered the following topics:
-
biographical data;
-
World War I;
-
October Revolution of 1917;
-
economic and religious life after the revolution;
-
emigration and arrival in Canada;
-
religious life after immigration.
4.1.2 Data Set 2
The second part of the primary data is a set of interviews in High German conducted by
the author of this study between February and May 2007. It consists of nineteen
interviews with twenty-four Russian Mennonites (fourteen men and ten women), who
were born between 1918 and 1938 in Mennonite Colonies in Southern Russia and
92
immigrated to Canada in the years following World War II (1946-1967). The length of
the interviews varied from twenty-eight minutes to two hours.
Number of interviews:
19
Number of participants:
24 (male: 14, female: 10)
Year of birth:
1918-1938
Year of immigration:
1946-1967
Interview length:
28-120 min.
Total number of interview minutes:
1159 (19 h. 19 min.)
Place of residence in Russia:
Colony:
Chortitza (total of 7)
Villages of:
Chortitza (2)
Einlage (1)
Kronstal (1)
Neuendorf (2)
Osterwick (1)
Colony:
Fürstenland (total of 1)
Villages of:
Colony:
Michelsburg (1)
Krim (total of 1)
Villages of:
Colony:
Karasan (1)
Molotschna (total of 13)
Villages of:
Friedensdorf (1)
Hamberg (2)
Halbstadt (2)
Gnadenfeld (1)
Ladekopp (2)
Ohrloff (1)
Rudnerweide (1)
Schönsee (1)
Wernersdorf (2)
Colony:
Schlachtin-Baratov (total of 1)
Villages of:
Colony:
Steinfeld (1)
Zagradovka (total of 2)
Villages of:
Place of residence in Ontario:
Neuschönsee (2)
Kitchener-Waterloo (21)
Cambridge (1)
Toronto (2)
Table 4-2: Summary of the 2007 interviews set
93
Unlike the first set of interviews that aimed at collecting primarily historical information,
this set was conducted specifically for a linguistics project. Thus, the primary goal while
conducting the interviews was to elicit linguistic data reasonably characteristic of the
speakers‟ normal language behaviour. However, the presence of an unfamiliar
interviewer and a voice-recording device are known to make the participants nervous and
to cause them to alter their linguistic behaviour, and speak more „correctly‟, and
therefore, more formally (McMahon, 1996, p. 234). This phenomenon has long been
noticed by linguists and has always been one of the central concerns of field linguistics
(Wei, 1994, p. 83). It has been termed Observer‟s Paradox by William Labov, who
summarised it as follows: “the aim of linguistic research in the community must be to
find out how people talk when they are not being systematically observed; yet we can
only obtain this data by systematic observation” (Labov, 1973, p. 209).
“The problem is of course not insoluble” (Labov, 1973, p. 209) and there exist
various ways to overcome the paradox. In this project, a combination of the „friend of a
friend method‟ and semi-structured interviews were employed to cope with this
challenge.
The “friend of a friend” technique to locate and recruit participants has been
widely applied in anthropology (Boissevain, 1974) and was successfully employed in
linguistic fieldwork by Milroy (1980) and others. The core of the method lies in the
notion that “„friends of friends‟ in most societies are extremely important people”
(Milroy, 1987, p. 46) and that if a stranger is identified as a friend of a friend, “his
chances of observing and participating in prolonged interaction will then be considerably
increased” (Milroy, 1987, p. 53). Applying Milroy‟s technique, I was introduced to each
94
interviewee by one of my personal friends from the third-wave immigrants whom the
participants have also known personally for a number of years. This had “the effect of
guaranteeing good faith” (Milroy, 1987, p. 66) and besides gaining me access to the
participants who otherwise might not have been willing to be interviewed, this technique
allowed me to assume a role “rather different from that of a researcher” (Milroy, 1987, p.
66), and consequently, to have longer conversations in a more informal manner. My own
Mennonite roots and personal connections, knowledge of High German and Russian, a
personal family story very similar to those of the interviewees, as well as my familiarity
with the area where most of the participants came from, have undoubtedly assisted me in
taking the role of a friend and an interlocutor interested in the interviewees‟ personal
stories (which I most certainly was) as opposed to that of a researcher only collecting
linguistic data.
Next, in order to elicit more informal speech, which would be closer to the
participants‟ natural language behaviour, the semi-structured type of interviews was
chosen. Unlike fully structured interviews in which “the agenda is totally predetermined
by the researcher who works through a list of questions in a predetermined order”
(Nunan, 1992, p. 149), the interviews in the second set resembled an informal dialogue or
discussion and were based around a framework of the following six topics:
-
biographical data;
-
languages in the family and in the village;
-
schooling, cultural life in the village;
-
World War II;
-
coming to Canada and life in Canada;
-
the present use of languages.
95
Fragen für Interviews mit Rußland-Mennoniten
A. Geburtsdatum und Ort
1. Wo und wann sind Sie geboren?
2. Wo liegt der Ort?
3. Was für ein Ort war das (районный центр usw.)?
4. Wer wohnte in Ihrem Dorf? (gemischtes/geschlossenes Dorf?)
5. Gab es große Fabriken, Mühlen, Schulen oder so etwas in Ihrem Dorf?
B. Sprachliche Situation in der Familie und im Wohnort
7. Welche Sprachen wurden in dem Dorf gesprochen?
8. Welche Sprache sprachen Sie mit Ihren Eltern?
9. Welche Sprache sprachen Ihre Eltern miteinander und mit ihren
Verwandten/Freunden?
10. Konnten Ihre Eltern Russisch/Ukrainisch?
11. Haben Sie auch Plautdietsch verstanden?
12. Gab es in Ihrem Dorf Leute, die Hochdeutsch als Muttersprache gesprochen
haben?
13. Gab es andere Deutsche in der Gegend? (nicht Mennoniten)
C. Schulung
14. Gab es einen Kindergarten oder etwas Ähnliches?
15. Wann haben Sie die Schule angefangen?
16. Welche Sprache wurde in der Schule gesprochen?
17. Welche Sprachen haben Sie in der Schule gelernt?
18. Gingen nur Mennoniten zu Ihrer Schule oder studierten alle zusammen?
19. Hatten Sie nicht-mennonitische Freunde?
20. Erinnern Sie sich an Ihre(n) Lehrer/Lehrerin?
21. Wissen Sie, wo er (sie) studiert hat?
22. Wann haben Sie die Schule abgeschlossen?
23. Wo haben Sie danach studiert?
24. Haben Sie russische (ukrainische) Lieder gelernt?
25. Haben Sie in der Schule Gedichte auswendig lernen müssen?
26. Was denken Sie über die russische Sprache? War sie schwer zu lernen?
D. Kultur im Dorf
27. Sind sie als Kind zur Kirche gegangen?
28. Welche Sprache wurde in der Kirche benutzt?
29. Hatten Sie ein Radio?
96
30. Sind Sie ins Kino gegangen? Was haben Sie gesehen?
31. Haben Sie zu Hause Bücher gehabt?
32. Gab es eine Bibliothek im Dorf?
33. Haben Sie (Ihre Eltern) Zeitungen gelesen? In welcher Sprache?
34. Hatten Sie Kontakt mit West Preußen, Deutschland oder Kanada?
35. Wo haben Sie nach der Schule gearbeitet?
36. Kennen Sie Leute, die nicht in mennonitischen Dörfern blieben?
37. Würden Sie sagen, dass alle Mennoniten Russisch verstanden?
E. Der Zweite Weltkrieg
38. Was passierte, als der Krieg ausbrach?
39. Wie wurde Ihr Dorf besetzt?
40. Wurden dann die deutschen Schulen wieder eröffnet?
41. Gab es wieder Kirchen?
42. Haben Sie noch Ihr Russisch benutzt?
43. Gab es dann deutsches Radio, Kino, Zeitungen usw.?
44. Wie haben Sie Rußland verlassen?
45. Wo haben Sie bis zum Kriegsende gewohnt?
46. Wie sind Sie der Roten Armee entkommen?
47. Was haben Sie in Deutschland nach dem Krieg gemacht?
F. Reise nach Kanada
48. Wie sind Sie zur Entscheidung gekommen, nach Kanada auszuwandern?
49. Haben Sie Verwandte in Kanada gehabt?
50. Wurden Sie gesponsert? Wenn ja, von wem?
51. Wie sind Sie gekommen?
52. Sind sie allein oder in einer Gruppe gekommen?
53. Wo sind Sie angekommen?
54. Was haben Sie in Kanada gemacht?
55. Wie wurden Sie von den anderen Mennoniten empfangen?
56. Haben Sie viel Kontakt mit den anderen Mennoniten gehabt, die früher
ausgewandert sind?
57. Zu welcher Kirche gingen Sie?
58. In welcher Sprache waren die Gottesdienste? Und jetzt? Was denken Sie darüber?
G. Die heutige Situation
59. Sprechen Ihre Kinder Deutsch? Plautdietsch?
60. Wie oft und mit wem sprechen Sie Englisch?
61. Welche Sprachen benutzen Sie heute?
62. Kennen Sie viele russische Autoren? Lesen Sie noch russische Bücher?
63. Wann haben das letzte Mal ein russisches Buch gelesen?
64. Lesen Sie viel auf Deutsch?
Figure 4-2: Questions for interviews in the second data set.
97
Although the interviewees usually preferred to discuss these themes in chronological
order, there was neither a preferred order of topics nor constraints on the extent to which
the participants could expand on a given subject. The discussions usually took their own
course around the aforementioned topics. While every attempt was made to keep the
interviews as conversational as possible, in order to elicit information relevant to the
project and to make sure that as little as possible was left out, a list of sixty-four questions
exploring in more detail the themes mentioned above was composed. The questions were
used by the interviewer as guiding questions to keep the conversation going as opposed to
a checklist where each item has to be answered. In these two aspects the interviews in the
second set also differed from fully unstructured interviews, which are usually “guided by
the responses of the interviewee rather than by the researcher” (Nunan, 1992, p. 149).
Besides shifting the style of the discussion towards an informal dialogue,
employing semi-structured interviews provided an opportunity to engage the participants
in a discussion on approximately the same topics, which made the interviews comparable
to each other and allowed the interviewer to ask questions spontaneously arising in the
course of the discussion.
Finally, although the interviews were primarily linguistically and culturally
oriented and focused on various issues of language use and language contact, most topics
connected with the personal history of all participants without exception happened to
involve life-threatening and emotionally significant experiences. Thus, almost all
participants had family members sent into exile, arrested, or taken away by the NKVD,18
all were subject to the forced evacuation eastward in 1941, many had family members
18
Народный Комисcариат Внутренних Дел (People‟s Commissariat of Internal Affairs) was the Soviet
secret police organization which operated during the Stalinist Era.
98
who perished during the war, and all without exception had to hide from the Soviet
authorities in the years following the end of WWII, when forced repatriation (exile to
Siberia or Central Asia) of all refugees born on the territory of the Soviet Union took
place. In fact, such emotionally painful experiences prevented many potential participants
from being interviewed and caused some of those who initially agreed to take part in the
project to refuse at a later stage. Nevertheless, having the participants speak about such
experiences during the interviews was extremely important since “involving the subject
in questions and topics which recreate strong emotions he has felt in the past” is one of
the most successful techniques in overcoming the Observer‟s Paradox (Labov, 1973, pp.
209-210).
The interviews in this set were recorded at the residences of the interviewees with
the help of a digital voice-recording device and will be accessible at the Mennonite
Archives of Ontario after the completion of this study. Although there is no way of
testing whether the techniques to avoid the paradox employed in this project were
effective and to what extent the recorded speech is typical of the subjects‟ normal
language behaviour, it was felt that the interviews flowed smoothly and that the
participants felt comfortable with the interviewer on a personal level. Therefore, I believe
that the second set of interviews represents the informal speech of the participants
adequately.
But in order to be compared to each other, the Mennonite immigrants considered
in this study must satisfy two important conditions: they have to be different enough to
constitute two separate homogenous groups, and at the same they have to be similar
enough to be compared to each other. When it comes to the differences between Russian
99
Mennonite immigrants of the second and third waves, it must be mentioned that they
have been identified as the second and the third major „subgroups‟ of Russian
Mennonites in Canada in academic literature on the subject (e.g. Moelleken, 1992, p. 80).
Indeed, members of both groups clearly belong to different generations who left the
Soviet Union under very different circumstances, went by different paths to reach North
America, and settled in Canada almost thirty years apart. But most importantly, the
historical events and social conditions they experienced and witnessed first-hand in
Russia were radically different. Based on Smith‟s list of six “particular turbulent times
unleashing themselves upon the Mennonite settlements of Russia” (Smith, 1981, p. 340),
and adding several other dates which had much influence on the Mennonite communities
in Russia, I have compiled the following table illustrating the differences in historical
events experienced by each of the groups:
Interview set:
Year of birth:
Immigration to Canada:
Historical events
witnessed:








1976-1978
1884-1907
1923-1930
WWI (1914-1917)
The October Revolution
(1917)
The Civil War (1917-1922)
The War Communism
(1918-1921)
The New Economic Policy
(1921-1928)
Creation of the USSR (1922)
The famine of 1921-1922
Elimination of churches
(1928).







Table 4-3
100
2007
1917-1938
1945-1967
The liquidation of kulaks &
collectivisation (19281933)
The famine of 1932-1933
Stalinist purges of 19361940
Elimination of German
schools (1938)
Evacuation eastward at the
beginning of WWII (1941)
Evacuation westward by
the German Army (19431945)
Repatriation by the Red
Army (1945-1946)
Nonetheless, despite these significant differences, both second- and third-wave
Mennonite immigrants clearly represent the same ethno-religious group. In fact, with
only several exceptions, all of the third-wave immigrants were able to immigrate to
Canada only because of their Mennonite relatives who had settled there with one of the
previous two waves. As a result, the inventory of last names in both groups is virtually
the same, and while members of each migration wave and the descendents of the previous
wave immigrants often married each other, marriages with non-Mennonites were
discouraged and until a few decades ago were quite rare (Thiessen, 1963, p. 17). Further,
in addition to religion and ethnic background, the members of the two groups are
speakers of the same two „insider‟ varieties: Plautdietsch and High German, and to
varying degrees of the two „outsider‟ languages: Russian and English.
Further, members of both groups were born and spent their childhood and at least
a significant part of their teenage years (and often much longer) in the same closed and
semi-closed Mennonite villages in Southern Russia. They are undoubtedly a part of the
same culture, most vividly represented in traditional Russian Mennonite food which has
always been not only “a very important part of Mennonite culture”, but also “in ethnic
Mennonite culture tends to be connected with its emphasis on community” (“Mennonite
Historical Society of Canada”). In addition, at the time of the interview members of both
groups had spent close to fifty years in Canada and were over seventy years of age.
101
4.2
Data Transcription
4.2.1 The Software
For the analysis of both sets of interviews I am using software which constitutes a part of
the CHILDES (Child Data Exchange System) project (McWhinney, 2000). Founded in
1984 at the Department of Psychology at Carnegie Mellon University for the purpose of
investigating child language development, the project has expanded into a fullyfunctional computerized exchange system for language data and has also become a
powerful computational tool for the analysis and sharing of transcribed data with
potential for second-language learning, analysis of language disorders, sociological
content, as well as adult conversational interactions (McWhinney, 2007, p. 6).
Ten selected interviews (five from each set) were transcribed following the rules
of the CHAT (Codes of the Human Analysis of Transcripts) notation system, which
provides “a standardized format for producing computerized transcripts of face-to-face
conversational interactions” (McWhinney, 2007, p. 6) and is the default notation system
of CHILDES. The interview analysis was carried out with the help of the CLAN
(Computerized Language Analysis) software (McWhinney, 2008, p. 7) which also
constitutes a part of CHILDES.
My choice of CLAN as the main software for structural analysis was influenced
by its accessibility (it is a freeware downloadable from http://childes.psy.cmu.edu/), the
simplicity and intuitiveness of the notation system, and its extensive functionality: CLAN
supports multiple scripts, including the Cyrillic alphabet, and features an extensive
number of analytical commands which make it possble to specify numerous search
conditions and ways of displaying the results, thus giving almost endless possibilities for
102
the analysis of linguistic data. It can also perform operations across a number of files,
which is crucial for comparing two sets of interviews first individually and then to each
other. Finally, besides making it possibe to link the text of a transcription with the
corresponding segment of a specified audio file, CLAN also allows the user to change the
text of the transcription after the linking has been done.
Although an online database of transcriptions is the final “leg of a three-legged
stool” (McWhinney, 2007, p. 8) in the CHILDES project, the transcriptions of the data
considered in this dissertation will not be added to the database and will not be shared
online since the conducted interviews do not present language acquisition data but instead
are more suitable for oral history projects dealing with Russian Mennonites. Therefore,
the oral data collected for this project will be stored together with the other interviews in
the Mennonite Archives of Ontario at Conrad Grebel University College and will be
available there to all interested parties after the completion of this study.
4.2.2 Organisation of the Transcripts
Each interview has been transcribed in a separate file, which, according to the CHAT
requirements, began with a series of “header lines” providing the information which
remains constant throughout the interview, such as the names of the interviewer and
interviewee, the languages used in the interview, and the name of the transcriber. Each
„header line‟ obligatorily began with an @ sign.
@Begin
@Languages: de, en, ru
@Participants: NKP Nikolai_Penner Student, GUE Guenther_Enns Adult
@ID: Nikolai Penner interviewer, Guenther_Enns interviewee
@Coder:
Nikolai Penner
Example 4-1: Header lines in the transcriptions
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All spoken discourse has been entered on the so-called “main tiers” (McWhinney, 2007,
p. 35), beginning with an asterisk and followed by a three-letter code composed of the
first characters of participants‟ names, e.g. *HAB for Harry Braun or *AGN for Agnes
Niebuhr. I have changed the names of all participants in the 2007 interview in order to
ensure the subjects‟ anonymity and have used other typical Russian Mennonite names
instead. This has been done solely with the purpose of preserving the interviewees‟
Russian Mennonite identity and any associations with persons bearing those or similar
names in reality should not be made.
The project was reviewed by the Office of Research Ethics and received ethics clearance
on January 17th 2007 (ORE #: 13634).
All High German discourse was transcribed using standard German spelling.
However, since in the CHAT system all capitalized words are identified as proper nouns
(McWhinney, 2007, p. 21), capitalization has not been used where it is usually required
by the Standard German spelling rules, e.g. for the polite forms of pronouns, for all
common nouns, and for the first words of sentences (see Example 4-2)
31 *AGN:
32 *AGN:
33 *AGN:
34 *AGN:
die mutter war hausfrau also die, die musste auch.
ich weiss nicht ob du davon was weisst, die wurde, tat brot ausfahren.
also sie kriegten brot und da hatte sie ein wagen.
ich hab ihr mal geholfen.
Example 4-2: Main tiers
4.2.3 Transcribing Elements from Other Languages
Since all interviewees in both sets of data are multilingual, lexical elements from
languages other than High German (English, Plautdietsch, and Russian) were used quite
frequently. In cases when the source language of the borrowed lexical elements was
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obvious, they were attributed the following “special form markers”(McWhinney, 2007, p.
35):
@e for borrowings from English;
@r for borrowings from Russian;
@pd for borrowings from Plautdietsch.
Standard German spelling was used to transcribe Plautdietsch words or morphemes, all
English words and utterances were transcribed using Canadian English spelling
(following the Canadian Oxford Dictionary), and all borrowed Russian words were
transcribed using the Cyrillic alphabet (see Example 4-3).
68
*HAB:
163 *MTO:
na, well@e, der совхоз@r, wo mein vater arbeitete, das waren
alles russen.
... ich hatte keinen coat@e, kein gar nichts, und keine schuhe,
nur schlorren@pd.
Example 4-3
Such instances of speakers using individual lexical elements from another language (the
phenomenon referred to as lexical borrowing in Chapter 3) were differentiated from cases
when complete clauses or syntactically connected strings of words from a different
language were used (the phenomenon referred to as code-switching in Chapter 3).
Instances of the latter were transcribed using underscore symbols instead of spaces
between individual words and attributed a special case marker indicating the source
language. Doing this has allowed the computer to treat instances of code-switching as
phrasal elements (McWhinney, 2007, p. 44) as opposed to a number of independently
used words. For example:
18 *GUE:
19 *GUE:
20 *GUE:
das ist history@e history@e wird geschrieben wie es passiert ist,
nicht dass man eine seite bevorzugt oder die andere.
von jede seite gibt es gute und schlechte seiten.
lets_put_it_that_way@e.
Example 4-4
105
Thus, in the above example the lexeme „history‟ on line 18 will be treated by the
computer as a lexical borrowing of a single element from English and, since it was used
twice by the speaker, will be attributed the count of two. The phrase „let‟s put it that way‟
in utterance 20, on the other hand, will be considered as a single phrasal element
borrowed from English and will be attributed the count of one. At the same time, none of
the individual lexemes from this utterance will be considered separately by the computer.
4.2.4 Utterances
Since CHAT requires that each main tier contain only one utterance, all stretches of
speech that presented grammatically and semantically complete clauses and were
surrounded by audible pauses were considered to be separate utterances, such as in
Example 4-2. Grammatically and semantically complete clauses that were not surrounded
by audible pauses were split into several utterances and, consequently, were recorded on
separate main tiers a) when the speaker changed topics, or b) at clause boundaries when
the utterance became longer than several consecutive lines. For example:
27
*APK:
28
*APK:
nicht alle auf einem platz aber und mein vater hatte die wirtschaft
angefangen ein bißchen wollte sich da einrichten wurde dann krank und
konnte dann dann ging er in die industrie bei Lepp und Wallman.
da war er hauptbuchhalter.
Example 4-5
Since putting grammatically and semantically incomplete clauses on separate main tiers
would significantly affect the readability of the transcripts, they were recorded on the
same main tier unless they were separated from the rest of the speech by pauses or the
topic of the utterance changed. For instance, in Example 4-6, the incomplete clauses in
utterance 182 are treated as one utterance because they are connected semantically and
106
there are no significant pauses between them. Similarly, semantically connected clauses
in utterance 183 were also recorded as a separate utterance.
182 *HAB:
und die kühe, well@e, als, zuletzt dann haben wir auch die kühe von all die.
183 *HAB:
die kühe wurden da im dorf zusammen, wurden genommen.
Example 4-6: Incomplete clauses as utterances
4.2.5 Punctuation Marks and Other Symbols
Since in the CHAT system punctuation marks are used differently from in regular written
texts, besides the three default utterance terminators required by CHAT at the end of each
utterance (an exclamation mark, a question mark, or a period), commas were used to
indicate pauses and to separate clauses if the meaning or structure of the utterance would
otherwise be ambiguous. For instance, the utterance in Example 4-7 features the verb in
the third position and therefore violates the rule of Standard German that in regular
statements the first element must be immediately followed by the finite verb:
3 *GUE:
und sonst man kam damals...
Example 4-7
However, in the recording, there is an audible pause between “und sonst” and “man kam
damals” which is not long enough to suggest that these should be treated as two separate
utterances but which indicates that “und sonst” and “man kam damals…” may be two
separate constructions and, therefore, the word order of the second construction is not
necessarily violated:
3 *GUE:
und sonst, man kam damals ...
Example 4-8: Usage of commas
107
Using commas in such situations has significantly increased the readability of the
transcripts and helped to avoid similar misinterpretations.
Other symbols used in the transcriptions are:
<text> [?] indicating the transcriber‟s best guess at a word or group of words.
This symbol was used when a particular word or phrase could not be clearly identified,
but the transcriber could make a reasonable guess which made reading the transcript
easier, e.g.:
118 *GUE:
und der sagte die jüngere die haben <viel> [?] unterschrieben.
Example 4-9
xx and xxx were used to transcribe unintelligible words and groups of words,
respectively. These symbols were necessary to identify segments of the interviews which
due to various reasons (e.g., laughing, mumbling, talking from another room, external
noise, such as from an air conditioner, dehumidifier, refrigerator etc.) the transcriber
could not understand or make a reasonable guess at. Thus, “xx” in Example 4-10
represents a single word and will be treated as such by the software, whereas “xxx” in
Example 4-11 stands for a string of consecutive unintelligible words and will be ignored
by the computer when performing various analysis commands, such as word frequency
counts, etc.
265 *NFZ:
und bei dem garten gab es ein xx.
Example 4-10: Single Unintelligible Word
99 *APK:
ja sag ich xxx..
Example 4-11: A Stretch of Unintelligible Words
www indicated material not transcribed for various reasons, e.g. when the interviewer
108
was answering an interviewee‟s question. This symbol was always provided with an
explanation on a dependent %exp tier, such as in Example 4-12:
132 *GUE:
*NKP:
%exp:
xx sagte er konnte тракторист@r werden aber xxx nicht lehrer,
keine, keine, keine, xxx.
www.
the interviewer is telling a personal story.
Example 4-12: Untranscribed material
4.2.6 Phenomena Not Indicated in the Transcriptions
Although the CHAT notation system possesses means of indicating various elements of
spoken discourse, the following phenomena were not transcribed: intonation patterns,
phonetic and phonological characteristics, interruptions, self interruptions, break-offs,
repetitions, overlaps, latches, and repairs. Including these phenomena in the
transcriptions would drastically slow down the transcribing process and at the same time
significantly decrease the readability of the transcripts, and would hardly bring any
benefits to this study as the aforementioned phenomena are not directly relevant to this
research.
4.2.7 Linkage with the Recordings
Each transcription was linked to the digitized recording of the corresponding interview.
This was done in the CLAN program by inserting at the end of each utterance a “sound
marker” (McWhinney, 2008, p. 25) which associated the given utterance with a particular
part of a specified audio file. Such sound markers in CLAN have the following form:
321 *HAB:
zu die mutter nicht. %snd:"interview19_harry_braun"_9915_17984
Example 4-13
109
However, by turning on a corresponding option in CLAN, such sound markers were
“closed” (McWhinney, 2008, p. 25) and displayed as bullets:
321 *HAB:
zu die mutter nicht. •
Example 4-14
Linking the transcripts with the audio recordings made it possible to replay each specific
utterance without manually looking for the required interview segment. Besides replaying
utterances individually, CLAN can also function in the “continuous playback mode”
(McWhinney, 2008, p. 25) in which the program replays the interview after a specified
point, highlighting each transcribed utterance as it is being pronounced. The possibility to
play back the needed utterance(s) quickly turned out to be especially helpful when
eliminating unclear parts of the interviews, and continuous playback was invaluable
while searching for linguistically interesting phenomena.
4.3
Coding the Data
4.3.1
The Methodological Framework
The major strategies for the analysis of the interviews were borrowed from the
methodological framework known as Grounded Theory. Initially formulated by Glaser
and Strauss (1967) this method was further developed in 1978 (Glaser) and in 1987
(Strauss). The next publication by Strauss & Corbin (1990) met with very sharp criticism
from Glaser (1992) and eventually led to the split between the researchers. The
differences between the Glaser and the Strauss & Corbin versions of Grounded Theory
need not concern us here, as only the core methodological strategies of the method were
borrowed and adapted to the specific needs of this project.
110
The methods of Grounded Theory were originally developed for use in the social
sciences and are highly suitable for the analysis of textual data such as interview
transcripts (Strauss & Corbin, 1990, p. 14f.; Strauss, 1987, p. 56). In their volume on
methods of textual analysis, Titscher et al. (1998) also state that the “prominentestes
Anwendungsgebiet der GT dürfte ... jedenfalls Textanalyse sein” (p. 93).
At the heart of the method lies the “general method of comparative analysis”
(Glaser & Strauss, 1967, p. 1), which includes “scrutinizing the fieldnote, interview, or
other document very closely; line by line, or even word by word” (Strauss, 1987, p. 28)
with the purpose of systematically working out conceptual categories and their properties
“in relation to the data” (Glaser & Strauss, 1967, p. 6). At this, categories are defined as
conceptual elements of the theory and properties as conceptual aspects or elements of a
category (Glaser & Strauss, 1967, p. 36). As the research proceeds, the codes and subcodes are „categorized‟, i.e. “zueinander in Verbindung gesetzt, in eine Ordnung
gebracht, z.B. hierarchisiert“ (Titscher et al., 1998, p. 97). In both versions of Grounded
Theory the process of generating categories is referred to as „coding‟, and, consequently,
categories with their properties (sub-categories) are called „codes‟ and „sub-codes‟.
Creating such a hierarchical system of codes and sub-codes to be inserted into the
transcripts especially suited the purposes of the project, as working with such sets of
codes is one of the main functions and strengths of the CLAN software used for the
structural analysis of the transcripts.
The categories, codes, and sub-codes used for the content analysis of the
interviews in this project were taken from the discipline of sociolinguistics, which is “the
study of language in relation to society” (Hudson, 1996, p. 1). Although usually three
111
major social characteristics – class, sex, and age – are considered to have the most effect
on one‟s linguistic behaviour, these three factors are considered to be “enormously
complex, subsuming a host of social factors” (Chambers, 2003, p. 7), such as education,
occupation, type of housing, etc. Although most social variables considered in this project
were specific to the Russian Mennonites and resulted from the unique historical and
social settings in which both groups lived (e.g. attitude or participation in the
Selbstschutz), most social variables considered in this study were taken from the
Chamber‟s description of the domains of sociolinguistics (Chambers, 2003, pp. 1-10).
4.3.2 Sets of Categories and the Tier System in CHAT
During the course of the project, two core categories for the analysis of the data have
been developed:
1) Categories for structural analysis. These categories captured linguistically
interesting grammatical phenomena (as understood in Construction Grammar, i.e.
including discourse and pragmatic functions) which occurred in the interviewees‟
speech. The same set of codes was used for both data sets;
2) Categories for sociolinguistic analysis. These categories focused on various
historical and social factors which may have influenced the participants‟
proficiency in usage of, and attitude to various languages they spoke and came in
contact with. Because of the completely different historical and social settings of
the events discussed in each set of interviews, different categories were needed for
each set.
112
4.3.2.1 Categories for Structural Analysis
According to CHAT and CLAN conventions, all developed codes and categories for
structural analysis were incorporated into the transcripts on the so-called “dependent
tiers” (McWhinney, 2007, pp. 76-84). These tiers are additional lines bound to a
particular main tier and reserved for coding and commentary regarding what was said
(McWhinney, 2007, p. 20). Dependent tiers always began with a percent sign followed by
a three-letter code for the dependent tier type. In this project, three types of dependent
tiers were used: coding tiers (%cod) containing the codes for observed peculiar linguistic
phenomena, commentary tiers (%com) containing the researcher‟s field notes, and
explanatory tiers (% exp) used predominantly for content analysis (sociolinguistic
phenomena). Thus, in Example 4-15 all three of the dependent tiers are assigned to the
same main tier:
147 *GUE: nein die russisch sprache ist ganz leicht zu lernen, und
lesen und schreiben noch viel leichter.
%cod: $ADJ
%exp: opinion about the russian language
%com: it seems like the main verb after schreiben is missing
Example 4-15: Main and dependent tiers
4.3.2.2 The Internal Structure of Codes.
According to the rules of CHILDES, the beginning of each individual code was marked
with a $ sign followed by the name of the code consisting of a set of capital letters. For
example, non-standard noun form were marked as: $NOUN. Further, codes requiring
additional specification were provided with sub-codes, thus making it possible to give a
more detailed description of a certain linguistic feature. For instance, the $NOUN code
was given the sub-codes :PLUR indicating a non-standard formation of plural and
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:COMP marking a non-standard formation of a compound noun. Because in CHAT all
codes are arranged hierarchically, if several sub-codes are located on the same level (such
as :PLUR and :COMP in Figure 4-3), only one of them can be used within the same
code:
:PLUR
%cod:
$NOUN
:COMP
Figure 4-3: Schematic representation of a code‟s structure
Thus, in order to indicate non-standard construction in both noun compound as well as
plural formation, the same main code needs to be used twice but with different sub-codes:
%cod:
$NOUN:PLUR $NOUN:COMP
Example 4-16
The same coding tier can contain as many different codes as needed to describe all
linguistic phenomena located on the specified main tier. Although CHAT allows the
nesting of an unlimited number of sub-codes under the same code name, the codes in this
project never had more than three levels (the code name and two levels of sub-codes), as
in the following example:
%cod:
$DAT:PRE:PLU
Example 4-17
114
4.3.3 The Code System for Grammatical Phenomena
The basis of the coding of grammatical phenomena has been developed during the course
of the pilot study by printing out and examining the transcription of one interview from
the 2007 interviews set and by making annotations in the printouts, which in Grounded
Theory is called „open coding‟. During the process of annotating the transcription, the
main goal was to create a system of codes, which would facilitate the classification and
description of most linguistically interesting elements that occurred in the interviewee‟s
speech. Once a preliminary set of codes was developed, they were entered into a single
file required by CLAN to insert the codes consistently throughout the transcripts
(McWhinney, 2008, pp. 33-34) and then integrated into the transcription of the same
interview. Then the transcription was printed out and examined again with the purpose of
modifying the system of codes in order to give it a logical hierarchical structure and to
eliminate major overlaps between individual codes. This step was repeated several times
until a logical and hierarchical system of codes was developed (see Table 4-4).
$ACC
Accusative: non-standard usage of the accusative case
$ADJ
Adjective: non-standard adjective form or an adjectival phrase
$CONS
:DET
Construction: items larger than a word that require special attention
:INF
:PR+DE
:POSS
:UM+ZU
:MISC
$DAT
:IND_OBJ
Determiner construction: non-standard combination of determiners
Infinitive construction: non-standard usage of infinitival construction
Usage of a preposition in a combination with “de”, a form closely resembling a
definite article
Possessive construction: non-standard possessive construction
Non-standard usage of the um+zu construction
Miscellaneous construction: items larger than a word that do not fit into other
categories
Dative: non-standard usage of the dative case
Indirect Object: not assigning the dative case to an indirect object
:TIM
Time: not assigning dative in a construction expressing time
:LOC
Location: not assigning dative in a construction expressing location
:PRE
Preposition: not assigning dative after a dative preposition
:SIN
Singular: not assigning dative - singular form
:PLU
Plural: not assigning dative - plural form
115
$GEND
:RUS
Gender: various issues connected with the usage of grammatical gender
Russian: assigning gender to a Russian noun
:ENG
English: assigning gender to an English noun
:DEV
assigning a non-standard gender to a German noun
$NOUN
:PLUR
:COMP
$PREP
:YEAR
:MISC
Noun: non-standard noun form
Plural: non-standard formation of plural
Compound: non-standard formation of a compound
Preposition: non-standard usage of a preposition
Year: Non-standard usage of a preposition with a year
Miscellaneous: all other cases of non-standard preposition usage
$GENE
non-standard usage of the genitive case
$PRO:
:REL
non-standard pronoun usage
:MISC
$SYN
:WO
:MISS
Relative pronoun
Miscellaneous
Non-standard word order
Missing: a missing element
:SUBJ
Subject: a missing subject
:PZII
Partizip II: a missing past participle
:MVER
Main verb: a missing main verb
:OBJ
Object: a missing object
$VERB
:AUX
Verb: non-standard usage of a verb or verb form
Auxiliary: non-standard usage/formation of an auxiliary
:CONJ
Conjugation: non-standard conjugation of a verb
:PAST
Past tense: non-standard usage/formation of a past tense form
:PZII
Partizip II: non-standard usage/formation of a past participle
$VOC
Vocabulary: usage of a non-standard lexical item
Table 4-4: The system of grammatical codes in alphabetical order
Although a large number of grammatical categories describing linguistically interesting
elements of the interviewee‟s speech were initially generated, only those phenomena
which occurred systematically in the interviewee‟s speech were selected and incorporated
into the final hierarchy of codes used for tagging the rest of the interviews.
In addition, some of the initially coded phenomena that occurred only once in the
pilot study interview were added to the final system of codes at a later stage if they were
116
found in other interviews as well. Similarly, phenomena frequently found in interviews
other than the one used for the pilot project were also attributed codes and integrated into
the coding system at a later stage.
4.4
Structural Analysis of the Data
4.4.1 Words of Caution and Using the Duden
At this point, some words of caution are necessary. The spoken data produced by the
Russian Mennonites considered in this study is compared to the norms of modern
Standard High German, which, as mentioned in the previous chapter, I equate with the
Duden grammar. An obvious problem with this approach is using the grammar of written
German to describe the speakers‟ spoken performance. Although I am aware of this
discrepancy, I will have to rely on the norms listed in the Duden grammar because there
exist no grammars or other reference works containing the acceptable constructions of
spoken High German.
A further problem is the fact that the constructions typical to the High German of
Russian Mennonites who had acquired the language at the end of the nineteenth century
or in the first half of the twentieth are being compared to the norms of modern Standard
High German. Since norm is defined as “a set of patterns in speech which are usual
across a community but are not seen as constrained by a language system”, (“norm”, The
Concise Oxford Dictionary of Linguistics) most likely different sets of norms existed
among Russian Mennonites of each group. Further and most importantly, since norms are
linguistic conventions eccepted by the speakers of a variety, the norms of language
among Russian Mennonites do not have to be identical with those of the modern Standard
117
High German. Although this is a limitation, it must be mentioned that I am not enforcing
the norms of Standard High German on the High German spoken by Russian Mennonites
but rather use them as a reference point to describe constructions specific to this variety.
Finally, as a non-native speaker of German, I would like to avoid relying on my
intuition when locating and describing the non-standard constructions of the
interviewees‟ High German and would like to be able to look up the acceptable
constructions in a reputable widely-used book. Hence, Duden presents the most logical
choice.
It also goes without saying that the norms of modern Duden German cannot and
must not serve as a measurement of correctness of the High German variety spoken by
Russian Mennonites and are only taken as a reference for the description of the speakers‟
performance. Therefore, although the elements of the interviewees‟ High German
performance contrasting with the norms of Standard High German will be referred to as
„deviations‟ [from Standard High German] or as non-standard, this term is to be read only
as a descriptive and not as an evaluative term. I am aware that the term „deviation‟ carries
certain negative connotations and I have considered using a number of other terms, such
as „differences‟ or „non-standard constructions‟. However, for the sake of brevity and for
the lack of a better term, I chose to use the term „deviation‟, attributing to it no negative
meaning whatsoever and viewing it as strictly as a descriptive term.
Further, the categories listed below have been developed for the purposes of
structural analysis to highlight only grammatical specifics of the interviewees‟ spoken
High German, since all constructions conforming to the norms of Standard High German
have already been described in the grammar books and are of no academic interest in this
118
study. The analysis undertaken in this study and everything I intend to say in this
dissertation should by no means create an impression that if a speaker‟s performance
differs from the norms of Standard High German, his or her speech is incorrect, deficient
or in any respect inferior to Standard High German.
The subsequent section presents brief explanations and typical examples of the
individual codes used during the interview analysis process. For the ease of reading,
individual codes presented below were grouped into „deviations by case‟, „deviations by
part of speech‟, and „other types of deviations‟.
4.4.2 Deviations in Case
Noticeable deviations in the usage of accusative, dative, and genitive cases were given
the codes $ACC, $DAT, and $GENE respectively. Deviations in the accusative case
were relatively simple and did not require additional sub-codes, e.g.:
213 *GUE:
%cod:
eigentlich kenne ich mein vater nicht.
$ACC
239 *GUE:
%cod:
... wir hatten nur ein lautsprecher.
$ACC
Example 4-18
The deviations in the usage of the dative case were much more frequent and diverse, so
that four additional categories of sub-codes were developed:
:DVER to denote usage of any case other than dative after a dative verb, e.g.:
898
*GUE:
%cod:
... wenn du mich so wenig traust, dann komm ich nicht mehr.
$DAT:DVER
Example 4-19
119
:TIM to refer to deviations in the constructions of time, such as:
710 *GUE:
%cod:
wie es, das war in die sechszige jahre.
$DAT:TIM
Example 4-20
:LOC to mark deviations in dative in constructions expressing location, e.g.:
897 *GUE:
%cod:
sagte, man weiß nicht was in die wäldchen passieren kann.
$DAT:LOC
Example 4-21
:PRE to indicate usage of all cases other than dative after dative prepositions:
30 *HAB:
%cod:
well@e mit die cousins, meine cousins, die schwester, die sprachen nur platt.
$DAT:PRE
Example 4-22
Further, since deviations in the usage of the dative case were numerous and quite diverse,
it was decided to add another level of sub-codes distinguishing whether the deviation
affected plural or singular forms (:SIN for singular and :PLU for plural):
710 *GUE:
%cod:
wie es, das war in die sechszige jahre.
$DAT:TIM:PLU
24 *GUE:
%cod:
das war ganz nördlich in die kolonie Molotschna.
$DAT:LOC:SIN
Example 4-23
Finally, the code $GENE was used to mark constructions where the genitive case was
required in Standard High German but not found in the analyzed interview:
876 *GUE:
%cod:
das muss am ende jahr gewesen sein.
$GENE
Example 4-24
120
4.4.3 Deviations by Parts of Speech
The code $ADJ has been used to label deviations in the usage of adjectives or adjectival
phrases. The deviations of this type were fairly similar and did not require additional
subcodes:
229 *HAB:
%cod:
446 *GUE:
%cod:
... die wussten doch alle wo die deutsche dörfer in russland
waren, denke ich ja.
$ADJ
kamen die deutsche rein.
$ADJ
Example 4-25
The code $NOUN with sub-codes :COMP and :PLUR designated deviations in the
formation of noun compounds and in the formation of the plural form of a noun,
respectively:
25 *GUE:
%cod:
und unsere stadt das war ein russe+stadt ... .
$NOUN:COMP
260 *GUE:
%cod:
oh das waren immer die selben films .
$NOUN:PLUR
274 *GUE:
%cod:
oder anderthalb stund ... .
$NOUN:PLUR
Example 4-26
Non-standard usage of prepositions was marked by the code $PREP. Since non-standard
prepositional constructions quite often included specific year numbers, it was decided to
mark such instances with a sub-code :YEAR and group all the other instances of
deviations in the prepositional usage under the sub-code :MISC:
87
*GUE:
%cod:
am sechdunddreissig.
$PREP:YEAR
Example 4-27
121
To mark deviations in the usage of pronouns ($PRO), two sub-codes were used: :REL to
mark non-standard usage of relative pronouns (Example 4-28) :MISC which represented
all other types of deviations (Example 4-29).
697 *GUE:
%cod:
418 *GUE:
%cod:
na das war die erste arbeit was wir haben ... .
$PRO:REL
haben wir löcher geblasen und gesehen dass die
4-28 männer kamen.
kommissarenExample
mit seine
$PRO:MISC
Example 4-29
The usage of verb forms not corresponding to the rules of Standard German was labeled
with the code $VERB, which was given the following four sub-codes:
:AUX to refer to non-standard usage/formation of an auxiliary, such as:
262 *GUE:
%cod:
... wie sie mit dem пулемѐт@r gefahren haben.
$VERB:AUX
Example 4-30
:CONJ to designate deviations in the verb conjugation:
241 *GUE:
%cod:
und du konntschje den lautsprecher einstellen oder abstellen aber zu
setzen was du horchen wolltest, nein das gab es nicht.
$VERB:CONJ
Example 4-31
:PAST to label non-standard usage/formation of a past tense form:
181 *GUE:
%cod:
es kommte darauf an.
$VERB:PAST
29
... da gingte der могылы@r way@e .
$VERB:PAST
*GUE:
%cod:
Example 4-32
:PZII to denote a non-standard formation of a past participle form (Partizip II):
122
143
*GUE:
%cod:
und das hat nicht geschaht mit vier jahre... .
$VERB:PZII
119
*GUE:
%cod:
... sie haben dann nicht untergeschrieben ... .
$VERB:PZII
Example 4-33
4.4.4 Other Types of Deviations
Various issues connected with grammatical gender were coded as $GEND. Instances
when gender was assigned to borrowed Russian or English nouns were given the subcodes :RUS and :ENG respectively. Deviations in noun gender from Standard High
German were assigned the sub-code :DEV:
269
*GUE:
%cod:
... und haben den noch den quarter@e hingelegt ... .
$GEND:ENG
328
*GUE:
%cod:
nur wenn sie vom район@r kamen .
$GEND:RUS
141
*GUE:
%cod:
aber der schulwesen war gut.
$GEND:DEV
Example 4-34
The code $VOC (vocabulary) indicated usage of a non-standard lexical item, e.g.:
44 *GUE:
45 *GUE:
%cod:
163 *MTO:
%cod:
und dann kam eine anlage die, wo die arbeiter waren und der
hirte waren und dampfmühle und windmühle waren.
so, so war das verlebt.
$VOC
... ich hatte keinen coat@e, kein gar nichts, und keine schuhe,
nur schlorren ... .
$VOC
Example 4-35
123
Non-standard syntactic patterns have been attributed the code $SYN, with the sub-codes
:WO for word order and :MISS for missing element. To specify the details of the latter,
:MISS was provided with further sub-codes :SUBJ (missing subject), :PZII (missing
past participle), :MVER (missing main verb), :OBJ (missing object). Schematically, the
structure of $SYN is represented in Figure 4-4
:WO
%cod:
$SYN
:MISS
:SUBJ
:PZII
:MVER
:OBJ
Figure 4-4
Typical examples of the phenomena coded by $SYN are:
153
*GUE:
%cod:
... für jedes wort du hast eigentlich eine buchstaben im russischen.
$SYN:WO
297
*GUE:
%cod:
... dann gingen wir rein und auf die tafel hat das angemalt.
$SYN:MISS:SUBJ
138 *GUE:
%cod:
zwei stunden in der woche wurde dann deutsch als fremdsprache.
$SYN:MISS:PZII
152
sagte sie, das ist einfach, das schreiben nur.
$SYN:MVER
*GUE:
%cod:
Example 4-36
Finally, the code covering the widest range of linguistic phenomena was called $CONS
(construction) and was used to code items larger than a word that require special
attention.
Seven sub-codes for $CONS were developed:
:DET marked a non-standard combination of determiners in a construction, such as:
124
143
*GUE:
130
%cod:
... mit vier jahre ein bißchen viel mehr von die nur vier jahre gehen,
die welche hier die hochschule rauskommen.
$CONS:DET
*GUE:
%cod:
mein ein cousin der war ... .
$CONS:DET
Example 4-37
:PR+DE referred to combinations of a preposition and “de”, a form closely resembling a
definite article:
324: *HAB:
%cod:
an de dreiundvierzig schon.
$CONS:PR+DE
216
und ich sag immer das war der beste mann in de ganze welt.
$CONS:PR+DE
*GUE:
%cod:
Example 4-38
:POSS marked a non-standard construction expressing possession, such as:
129
*GUE:
%cod:
... ein kulaker sohn, ... .
$CONS:POSS
311
*AGN:
%cod:
die kamen nach meinem mann sein bruder.
$CONS:POSS
286
*HAB:
%cod:
... den ihr platt ... mit der zeit lernte einer das.
$CONS:POSS
Example 4-39
:UM+ZU designated deviations in um ... zu constructions:
324
*GUE:
%cod:
und um nach hause fahren ... .
$CONS:UM+ZU
Example 4-40
:MISC was used as a sub-code covering all other items larger than a word requiring
additional attention. For example:
315
*GUE:
%cod:
da war auch niemand nicht zu hause.
$CONS:MISC
201
*GUE:
... die buchstaben die kann man, gotisch und leteinisch, der ist nicht
solche große unterschied.
$CONS:MISC
%cod:
Example 4-41
125
As it was impossible to completely avoid overlaps between certain codes (e.g. $SYN and
$CONS) and because certain expressions may be described by several categories (e.g.
“an de siebenunddreißig” could be classified as either $CONS:PR+DE or
$PREP:YEAR), specific attention was paid to consistently assigning the same code to a
specific category of deviations. As already mentioned, often multiple phenomena were
coded on the same coding tier, e.g.
29
*GUE:
%cod:
die wenn die durchzogen die nomaden oder wie die waren gingte der
могылы@r way@e.
$VERB:PAST $GEND:ENG
Example 4-42
4.4.5 Commentaries
Those forms which did not fit into any of the above categories, or which were noticed but
which have not been described or classified adequately, were provided with a dependent
“%com:” tier drawing attention to the given phenomena. For example:
175
*AGN:
%com:
da ging ich auch zur schule aber, weisst du später habe ich schon
gar nicht mehr ein ganzes jahr auf einer stelle zur schule
gegangen weil wir sind dann mal wieder weiter gereist.
haben gegangen - maybe she just forgot what she was saying
before?
Example 4-43
Commentary tiers in CHILDES can only contain notes and remarks associated with a
particular main tier. They draw the researcher‟s attention to a specific tier and contain
his/her commentaries to him or herself. Therefore, they do not follow a pre-determined
format and are not used for building and running commands.
126
4.4.6 The Process of Analysis
After the transcription was coded, it was analyzed in the CLAN software mainly with the
help of the commands COMBO and FREQ.
The command COMBO launches a search for all instances or combinations of symbols,
codes, or both, which satisfy specified conditions. For instance, the command in Example
4-44 looks up all instances of non-standard usage of accusative in a specified range of
files and prints out the main tiers and coding tiers associated with them:
combo +s"$ACC" +t%cod @
Example 4-44
Figure 4-5: COMBO output in CLAN
127
COMBO can also perform quite complex searches for combinations of symbols on the
main tier and for a specific set of codes on a dependent tier. For example, the following
command (Figure 4-6) searches for only those occurrences of dative prepositions
(specified in a file called dat_preps.cha) on the main tier, which coincide with codes
indicating deviations in the usage of the dative case on the dependent tier:
combo
+s"@dat_preps.cha^*^$DAT*" +t%cod @
Figure 4-6
Figure 4-7: COMBO output in CLAN
128
The command can be easily modified to search and display all those occurrences of
dative prepositions which are not associated with deviations in the dative case:
combo +s"@dat_preps.cha^*^!$DAT*" +t%cod @
Example 4-45
In order to locate words with special case markers (e.g. *@e), FREQ was used.
Although COMBO can also be used for the same purpose, the results of FREQ are more
concise and easier to read. Besides, FREQ also displays a count of the total occurrences
of each specified combination of symbols or codes. For example, the following command
was used to print out a list of all lexical borrowings from Russian with an indication of
how many times each individual word was used:
FREQ +s”*@r” @
Example 4-46
Figure 4-8: FREQ output
129
FREQ has been also very useful for counting the frequency of specific codes. The
following command found all combinations of the $CONS code and its various sub-codes
and printed out the list with the total number of occurrencea of each of the combinations:
FREQ +s"$CONS*" +t%cod @
Example 4-47
Figure 4-9: FREQ output II
130
4.5
Sociolinguistic Analysis
4.5.1
Categories for Sociolinguistic Analysis
The categories capturing various sociolinguistic and historic factors relevant to the
project were determined entirely by the content of the interviews and usually centered on
the topics mentioned during the interview. Thus, for the first set of data the following six
categories were used:
Category
1. Biography:
Subcategory
Name
Date of Birth
Place of Birth
Colony
Village Population
School
Work
Other Germans
Army Service (WWI)
Army Service (Civil War)
Occupation (WWI)
Selbstschutz
Makhno
Hungersnot
Self-identification
Attitudes to Russians
Left Russia
Came over as
Relatives in Canada
Came Through
Settled in
Church
Community
During WWII
Job
Adjusting
Heimweh
Relatives in Russia
1st language
Knowl. of R.
Plautdietsch
Learning E.
Kids & Grandkids
2. Life in Russia:
3. Emigration:
4. Life in Canada:
5. Languages:
131
About other languages
6. Other comments:
Table 4-5
Since the second set of interviews was conducted specifically for this project, the
categories for its sociolinguistic analysis were almost identical to the questions asked
during the interview:
Category
Biographic data:
Languages in the USSR:
Schooling:
Life in Russia:
Culture in the village:
Subcategory
Name
Date of Birth
Place of Birth
Colony
First language
Languages in the village
Languages with parents
Languages between parents
Interviewee‟s Plautdietsch
Opinion on Plautdietsch/Hochdeutsch
Connection to High German
High German-speaking villagers
Parents‟ Russian
Interviewee‟s Russian
Opinion of the Russian language
Kindergarten
Years of German school
Years of Russian school
Languages studied
Non-Mennonite children
Teacher
Village population
Non-Mennonite friends
Self-identification
Relations with the Russians
Other Germans
Job
Church
Radio
Cinema
German books
Russian books
Library
132
World War II:
On the way to Canada:
In Canada:
Languages today:
10. Linguistic comments:
Newspapers
Occupied by
Job in the USSR
Miscellaneous
Repatriation after the War
Place of residence in Germany
Job in Germany
Left Germany (year)
Came through (country)
Relatives in Canada
Trip
Immigration year
Job
Community
Other Mennonites
Switch to English
Russian
High German
English
Family in Russia/Germany
Languages with children and
grandchildren
Various categories
4.5.2 The Process of Analysis
For the purposes of sociolinguistic analysis, an Excel table for each set of interviews was
created. Each interview was listened to very carefully and was paused every time any
significant information relevant to the project was mentioned in order to allow careful
note-taking and to minimize the possibility of missing important information. During
these pauses, the information was entered into the corresponding fields of the Excel
tables. The entries were usually (especially so in the case of linguistic phenomena for the
untranscribed interviews) provided with a timestamp to enable lookup at a later stage.
Although initially it was planned to enter codes for sociolinguistic analysis on separate
dependent tiers, this turned out to be impractical since the answers to many questions
133
were located on a number of lines and needed to be condensed into meaningful keywords
or brief descriptions. Entering the necessary information into Excel tables provided an
excellent overview of the key information in many categories, and made an information
search much easier since all the entries were located on the same page next to each other.
Finally, not including sociolinguistic information in the interview transcriptions increased
their readability and made it possible to analyze all interviews, regardless of whether they
were transcribed or not.
4.6
Summary
The main data for the project comes from two sets of audio-recorded interviews: twentyone interviews with the Russian Mennonite immigrants of the second wave conducted
between 1976 and 1978 by Henry Paetkau and Stan Dueck, and nineteen interviews with
Russian Mennonite immigrants of the third wave conducted in the summer of 2007 by
myself. Only the first generation immigrants who were born in Mennonite colonies in
Southern Russia and currently reside in Ontario were considered. Participants in both sets
of interviews undoubtedly represent the same cultural and ethno-religious group but at
the same time form two clearly defined sub-group which makes it possible to compare
individual interviews within each set, and both sets of interviews to each other.
A total of ten interviews (five interviews from each set) has been transcribed
using the CHAT notation system, and a system of codes marking various grammatical
and sociolinguistic phenomena has been developed and inserted into the transcripts. Then
the transcriptions have been analyzed and compared to each other with the help of the
CLAN software which allows searches for various combinations of pre-inserted codes in
individual files as well as across a number of files. The last feature was especially useful
134
for comparing the two sets of transcriptions to each other and for displaying the portions
of transcription associated with the individual codes. The main purpose of the analysis
was to locate and describe those elements of participants‟ speech that contrast with the
norms of Modern Standard High German and are typical for the High German spoken by
Russian Mennonite immigrants in Ontario.
135
5. PILOT STUDY
At an early stage of the project, shortly after data collection began but before a significant
amount of time was invested in transcribing the interviews, a pilot study based on one
selected interview from the 2007 set was conducted. Out of six interviews available at
that point, the one felt to exhibit the greatest number of linguistic phenomena of interest
to the study, and therefore the one considered to be most suitable for the project, was
selected. The pilot study served the following major purposes:
1) to determine on the example of the selected interview if a sufficient amount of
linguistic material required for answering the main research questions of the
project would be found in the interviews;
2) to locate and categorise the linguistic specifics deviating from Modern Standard
High German present in the interviewee‟s speech with the purpose of developing
a logical and hierarchical system of codes which would represent these
grammatical phenomena and would be used in the project as the basis for tagging
further transcriptions;
3) to test the methodology of the project, including the suitability and reliability of
the transcription system and the appropriateness of the analytical software.
Consequently, the information presented in this chapter is largely descriptive. The main
conclusions, based on the analysis of the entirety of the interviews in both sets, as well as
their interpretation, are presented in chapters six and seven.
136
5.1
Data Description/Content Analysis
The speaker considered in this study is Guenther Enns,19 born in 1928 in a Russian
Mennonite village in the northern part of the Molotschna colony. The village was situated
within walking distance of the Russian settlements across the river but was populated
entirely by Mennonites and was primarily Plautdietsch-speaking. The only nonMennonites in the village were members of the Russian-speaking family of the village
shepherd. It is interesting to note that while the speaker remembers Jewish villagers
speaking High German to the Mennonites, he claims that the Russian shepherd and his
wife developed a passive knowledge of Plautdietsch. Moreover, he claims that the
shepherds‟ children were completely fluent in Plautdietsch and even attended the same
school as the Mennonite children, where the instruction was entirely in High German
until 1938.
Mr. Enns claims he could speak Russian as a child, which he believes he picked
up from Russian children in the neighbouring villages and Russian-speaking contractors
working for the Mennonite families. He holds a very positive view of the Russian
language and states that it is a very easy language to learn and especially to write, since
“every sound has a corresponding character.” While Guenther remembers his father
having an excellent command of the Russian language, he claims that his mother had
barely enough proficiency in Russian to conduct simple everyday activities, such as
buying groceries or selling produce at the market.
19
All participants in the 2007 set of interviews are referred to by pseudonyms to ensure confidentiality and
anonymity. In order to preserve the sense of the participants‟ Russian Mennonite identity, names common
among Russian Mennonites were selected. In examples of textual data taken directly from the transcription,
all names and references to persons who could lead to identification of the speaker have been replaced with
„xx‟ signs.
137
Despite the fact that marriages with non-Mennonites were not preferred, he
describes the relationship between the Mennonites and the Slavic population as very
good. Mr. Enns says that he had Russian friends as a child and does not remember serious
conflicts between the ethnic groups. The relationship of the Mennonites with the High
German-speaking ethnic Germans of Lutheran and Catholic denonimations present in the
area, who Mr. Enns referred to as „die Hochdeutschen‟ or „die Kolonisten‟, was
somewhat cooler as each group formed its own distinct settlements and tried to keep their
everyday lives separate as much as possible. However, he also states that it was not
uncommon for non-Mennonite Germans to become teachers in Mennonite schools, as
was the case with the four-year village school Mr. Enns attended himself.
Although his first language is Plautdietsch and he claims to have learnt High
German in school, in all likelihood Guenther was exposed to it from early childhood, so
that by the age of seven, when he started to attend the local village school, he already had
at least passive knowledge of it. This assumption seems reasonable for several reasons:
first of all, since High German was the only language of Mennonite faith, which, like
most protestant denominations, places a heavy emphasis on personal interpretation of the
Bible, Guenther was exposed to Bible readings and religious hymns as a child. Secondly,
the speaker remembers his father reading to him and his siblings books in High German
which he had ordered from abroad. Obviously, the father would not have done so, if the
interviewee and his siblings did not understand High German. Lastly, in 1935, when Mr.
Enns started his education in a Mennonite village school, High German was still the only
language of instruction as well as the default language of all printed materials in
Mennonite schools. If Mr. Enns indeed had no knowledge of High German, starting
138
school in this entirely new language would have resulted in serious difficulties, which he
does not mention in the interview.
In 1938, after Mr. Enns completed three years of schooling in High German, the
Soviet government issued a law according to which Russian became the primary
language of instruction as well as of the school materials in all schools in the Soviet
Union. High German was then offered for two hours a week as a foreign language. At
this time, most Mennonite teachers had to leave the school and Russian-speaking teachers
with little or no knowledge of High German took their place. The remaining Mennonite
teachers had to use only Russian with the students. Thus, Guenther completed grades four
and five in the Russian language before his education was interrupted by the Second
World War. Although Plautdietsch remained the primary language in the village, prior to
the summer of 1941 in addition to school instruction Guenther and his classmates were
exposed to the Russian language in a number of ways. As a part of their school program,
they were required to go to the Russian cinema (which he states they understood without
difficulty), at home they had to have a loudspeaker broadcasting a Russian-language
radio station, and finally, his family was obliged to subscribe to the Russian-language
newspaper Pravda. In addition, Mr. Enns reports that he knew and eagerly sang Russian
and Ukrainian songs together with other young Mennonites from their village.
In the summer of 1941 the Wehrmacht attacked the Soviet Union and the
interviewee‟s village was overrun by the German army. He did not report ever attending
school since. In 1943 Mr. Enns was drafted into the German army. During the war, he
was taken prisoner by the Allied forces and spent two years in a prisoner of war camp. He
was released in 1946 and lived in Austria until 1948, when he immigrated to Canada.
139
For the first several years in Canada, the interviewee lived in Manitoba on a farm
of Plautdietsch-speaking Russian Mennonite immigrants of the first wave. During this
time, he spent one winter in Winnipeg, during which he claims to have learnt the English
language from High German-speaking Jewish merchants. The speaker also claims to have
hardly ever spoken Russian after he left the Soviet Union in 1943.
In the early 1950s, Mr. Enns moved to Kitchener-Waterloo, where he resides
today. The Mennonite church to which he belongs was using High German as the
language of worship, of the Sunday school, and of the summer camps until the middle of
the 1970s, when it switched to English. Today the interviewee remembers his regret
about abandoning High German as the main language of religious service at the time of
the switch, and reports that he actively supported the High German language in the
church partially because of his mother, for whom English always remained a foreign
tongue. However, now he has changed his views on the topic and believes that the switch
to English was a natural and positive event in the life of his church. The speaker attends
occasional High German services still held in his church about once a month.
Although with his wife and friends the interviewee always spoke predominantly
Plautdietsch, their four children were raised with High German, which Mr. Enns sees as a
more useful language. The interviewee reports that while the oldest child is also able to
speak High German as well as some Plautdietsch, the youngest child has only limited
knowledge of High German. All of the children are now married to English-speakers and
use only English in their families. When they come to visit the interviewee and his wife,
they usually speak English.
140
The interviewee remembers that he often spoke High German with nonMennonite Germans in Kitchener-Waterloo in the past decades but admits that he does
not use it regularly any more. Until very recently Mr. Enns had been communicating
occasionally in High German with his relatives in Russia and Germany, primarily through
written correspondence. Today, Mr. Enns reports that he does not speak, read, or write
much in High German, but enjoys speaking Plautdietsch with his wife and friends and
browses Low German pages on the Internet.
5.2
Structural Analysis - Constructions Contrasting with Those of SHG
While the constructions found in the interviewee‟s speech generally conform to the rules
of Standard High German, a number of them were found to contrast with SHG. Below I
will outline, exemplify, and briefly discuss these constructions. It must be mentioned,
however, that almost all of the forms scrutinised below are not the only forms used by the
interviewee but co-exist with constructions of the same meaning entirely conforming to
the rules of Standard High German.
5.2.1 Case government
5.2.1.1
The Genitive Case
Throughout the sixty-seven minutes of the interview, Mr. Enns hardly used the genitive
case at all. In fact, only one overtly-marked genitive form (which, however,
morphologically is identical with dative) was observed at the very beginning of the
interview (Example 5-1), when the interviewee was talking about the attitude of the
German army to the Mennonites:
141
11 *GUE:
und dann die befreundness der deutschen armee.
Example 5-1
Prepositions requiring the genitive case were also used very scarcely and were never
followed by genitive forms. Instead, ellipsis (Example 5-2) or accusative case forms
(Example 5-3) were found:
69 *GUE:
%cod:
wenn die russen frauen suchten oder männer dann sind sie außerhalb gegangen.
$PREP:MISC
Example 5-2
711 *GUE:
%cod:
so unsere kinder die haben deutsche eingeschrieben sagten nur wegen dich oma.
$GENE
Example 5-3
The last example is especially interesting since in German-speaking countries genitive
prepositions such as „wegen‟ and „trotz‟ are increasingly being used with the dative case,
resulting in phrases such as „wegen dir‟. At the same time „wegen dich‟ is still considered
ungrammatical.
Further, on two occasions, nouns in indefinite constructions of time which should
be marked by genitive case endings (e.g. am Ende des Monats, am Ende des Jahres),
appeared in the interview with no case marking and without a determiner like in Russian
„в конце года‟ (in end-PREPOSITIONAL year-GENITIVE):
876 *GUE:
%cod:
das muss am ende jahr gewesen sein.
$GENE
928 *GUE:
%cod:
am ende monat kam der bill@e, haben sie zu mcc hingeschickt.
$GENE
Example 5-4
Finally, genitive was also not found in constructions expressing possession. Instead,
alternative grammatical means were used which are discussed in detail in section 5.2.8.4.
142
5.2.1.2
The Accusative Case
Although the speaker‟s usage of the accusative case generally conformed to the rules of
Standard High German, a number of instances failed to show accusative case markings or
exhibited cases other than the accusative. Of the nineteen such instances found in the
interview, fifteen featured indefinite articles or other ein-words (mein, kein, etc.) in the
nominative case, for example:
154 *GUE:
%cod:
für jedes andere wort hast du auch ein andere buchstaben.
$ACC
399 *GUE:
%cod:
und da gab es so ein krach.
$ACC
517 *GUE:
%cod:
der eine ist dann weg, der hat sein bruder da gefunden.
$ACC
Example 5-5
It is quite interesting that while the speaker produced forms with clear-cut accusative
markings on numerous occasions (Example 5-6), he showed inconsistency in assigning
accusative case to the same noun in two adjacent constructions (Example 5-7), and at
times assigned different cases to two direct objects within the same utterance (Example
5-8).
342 *GUE:
und dann hat mein vater ihn ausgekauft ihn und noch einen.
449 *GUE:
... und wir brauchten einen polizisten, der wird das machen.
Example 5-6
239 *GUE:
%cod:
240 *GUE:
... man sollte sie haben, wir hatten nur ein lautsprecher.
$ACC
... jedes haus hatte einen lautsprecher.
Example 5-7
338 *GUE:
%cod:
sagte ich kenne in unserem dorf nur einer aber der hat einen roten schnur.
$ACC
Example 5-8
143
However, it must be mentioned that some constructions coded as deviations in accusative
($ACC), such as the one presented in Example 5-7, may not be instances of the
nominative case used instead of accusative, but rather a syncope of the final unstressed
vowel resulting in the nominative-like realizations of masculine accusative forms.
Also noteworthy is the fact that in the entire interview not a single instance of an
accusative-marked form of possessive adjectives or of the negative article kein20 was
used. When fulfilling the syntactic role of an object, both possessive adjectives and kein
were usually assigned the nominative case:
213 *GUE:
%cod:
eigentlich kenne ich mein vater nicht.
$ACC
817 *GUE:
%cod:
aber no@e wir haben kein briefverkehr mit den.
$ACC
Example 5-9
Further, accusative was often not assigned in definite constructions of time where it is
obligatory in Standard High German:
373 *GUE:
%cod:
920 *GUE:
%cod:
und es muss vor weihnachten sein, da kam mein vater nach hause
mal eine abend mit dem schlitten und sein pferd, hat uns alle xx.
$ACC
er kam, er war bei uns da ein monat in xx.
$ACC
Example 5-10
Interestingly, at the same time the definite article never failed to show the accusative
when necessary, including definite expressions of time:
20
Here only the singular masculine accusative form is meant, since this is the only accusative form that
does not coincide with nominative.
144
266 *GUE:
als sie in fünfte klasse gingen, da mussten wir ich weiß
nicht mehr jeden monat oder jede zweite woche mussten
wir ins kino gehen.
602 *GUE:
und durch solchen rotten_apple@e bin ich hier gekommen.
648 *GUE:
da fragte ich den bauer ob ich zurück kommen kann.
Example 5-11
5.2.1.3
The Dative Case
Deviations in using the dative case undoubtedly present the largest category of deviations
in the interviewee‟s speech and by far outnumber all other types. Altogether, seventythree instances of failure to assign or to form a dative case where it is required in
Standard High German were found in the interview.
More than half of these instances, forty-seven to be precise, occurred after
prepositions which always require the dative case. Instead, nominative (Example 5-12)
and accusative (Example 5-13) were used on several occasions. In the majority of
instances, however, the case was impossible to determine as the nominative and
accusative forms coincide for feminine, neuter, and plural forms (Example 5-14).
493 *GUE:
%cod:
926 *GUE:
%cod:
wußte von kein.
$DAT:PRE:SIN
da hatte ich ein auto gerent mit ein fahrer.
$DAT:PRE:SIN
Example 5-12
694 *GUE:
%cod:
764 *GUE:
%cod:
859 *GUE:
%cod:
860 *GUE:
ja und dann ging zu einen holzhandler der zu trocken,
trockenholz.
$DAT:PRE:SIN
dann wollte sie mit mich fahren und ich sagte ich nehme
kinder nicht.
$DAT:PRE:SIN
unsere kinder sprechen noch dies außer den jüngsten ja.
$DAT:PRE:SIN
er hat nicht viel mitbekommen ... .
Example 5-13
145
19 *GUE:
%cod:
159 *GUE:
%cod:
192 *GUE:
%cod:
von jede seite gibt es gute und schlechte seiten.
$DAT:PRE:SIN
und da haben wir mit die verkehrt.
$DAT:PRE:PLU
und die kinder haben sicher bei meine mutter dann gesessen.
$DAT:PRE:SIN
Example 5-14
It is interesting to mention that unlike the deviations in accusative case, which affected
mostly indefinite articles and ein-words, both definite and indefinite articles, as well as
other words following their declension pattern appeared in this category:
851 *GUE:
%cod:
969 *GUE:
%cod:
wenn wir zu hause sind ... mit die frau und unsere freunde das
alles ist plattdeutsch.
$DAT:PRE:SIN $DAT:PRE:PLU
die arme frau xxx gesagt zu solche kirche gehe ich nicht.
$DAT:PRE:SIN
Example 5-15
After dative prepositions case seemed to be assigned arbitrarily and the speaker
fluctuated between dative and other cases in the same expressions quite frequently:
159 *GUE:
856 *GUE:
und da haben wir mit die verkehrt .
... mit den sprechen wir hochdeutsch ja.
588 *GUE:
... durfte er nicht kommen und dann haben sie ihm nach ein
jahr, an de zweiundfünfzig, haben diese durchgeben ... .
... nach einem jahr bin ich im herbst ... im herbst dann nach
einem jahr bin ich nach winnipeg.
638 *GUE:
Example 5-16
Although such deviations affected both singular and plural forms, the grammatical
number of the complement after dative prepositions did not seem to have significant
influence on case assignment as only slightly over half of such deviations affected plural
forms (27 out of 47).
Another category of instances where the dative case was frequently not assigned
are indirect objects and objects of so-called dative verbs (e.g. helfen, trauen), which
146
require their direct object to take the dative case. In all instances of such deviations, the
accusative case was used consistently:
335 *GUE:
%cod:
597 *GUE:
%cod:
905 *GUE:
%cod:
ich sage ich kann dich beschreiben wie die ausgesehen haben.
$DAT:IND_OBJ:SIN
wie die die menschen geholfen haben.
$DAT:IND_OBJ:PLU
dann sagt der mann zu xx wenn du mich so wenig traust dann
komm ich nicht mehr.
$DAT:IND_OBJ:SIN
Example 5-17
At the same time, just as is the case with most other types of deviations in the interview,
on numerous occasions the speaker used the same verbs with well-formed dative objects,
assigning dative-case markings to indirect objects, for example:
12 *GUE:
no er sagte fünfzig prozent sollte ich geben und ich gebe ihm keine.
Example 5-18
Occasionally he assigned different cases to indirect objects within the same utterance. For
example:
604 *GUE:
%cod:
da hat er dem gesagt er sollte mich schreiben wie ich dass
geschafft habe dass ich nach kanada kam.
$DAT:IND_OBJ:SIN
Example 5-19
A further sub-category of deviations in using the dative case are the so-called two-way
prepositions (e.g. in, an, auf, hinter, neben, etc.), whose complements must take the
dative case in constructions expressing location (static state), and accusative in those
expressing direction (dynamic state). The speaker did not seem to pay much attention to
this difference and usually did not use the dative case in constructions of location
(Example 5-20). It is quite interesting that in all instances of such deviations, only
147
feminine or plural nouns were used (e.g. Schule, Straße, Komission, Gemeinde, Kirche,
Bedingung, Staaten), whose nominative and accusative forms are identical.
24 *GUE:
das war ganz nördlich in die kolonie Molotschna ... .
615 *GUE:
das wird vom mcc verwaltet aber steht unter deutsche
flüchtlingsregierung.
626 *GUE:
als ich vor die kommission war ... .
953 GUE:
und dann sagte der xx ja wir bezahlen die schulden unter
eine bedingung.
Example 5-20
Finally, plural nouns almost always lacked the obligatory dative plural marker–n (for
those nouns whose plural form does not end in –n or –s (Example 5-21):
124 *GUE:
... da kamen von actually@e von vier dörfer.
177 *GUE:
ich mein mit uns kinder ja.
143 *GUE:
mit vier jahre wissen viel mehr von die ... die welche hier die
hochschule rauskommen.
Example 5-21
5.2.2 Verb Forms
5.2.2.1
Verb Conjugation.
All verbs in the interview were conjugated in full correspondence with the norms of
Standard High German with only a few exceptions, all of which seem rather arbitrary:
241 *GUE:
und du konntsche den lautsprecher anstellen oder abstellen ... .
251 *GUE:
ich weiß ich war auf dem baum da kam die von der
правление@r.
ich weiß nicht wieviel da waren... .
252 *GUE:
659 *GUE:
wenn du von chortitz kommst du sprechst dann anders als die
molochna.
Example 5-22
148
Also, on several occasions in passive constructions the auxiliary verb werden dropped the
final consonant of the third person plural ending –en, for example:
332 *GUE:
sagte ich schon, ich war drei jahre als wir aus dem haus
getrieben wurde.
501 *GUE:
... die haben, andere wurde entlassen aber die ss wurde nicht
entlassen.
Example 5-23
5.2.2.2
Simple Past Tense Forms.
While almost all simple past tense forms fully corresponded with the norms of Standard
High German (konnten, wusste, musste, sprach, sangen, etc.), several deviations were
detected. All of them involved strong verbs, which in the interviewee‟s speech partially
or fully followed the weak verb construction (Example 5-24), and mixed verbs, which
sometimes did not undergo a stem vowel change (Example 5-25).
29 *GUE:
%cod:
181 *GUE:
%cod:
die wenn die durchzogen die nomaden oder wie die
waren da gingte der могылы@r way@e.
$VERB:PAST
es kommte darauf an.
$VERB:PAST
Example 5-24
409 *GUE:
%cod:
410 *GUE:
%cod:
das nennten sie ording wie nennte man das in Rußland?
$VERB:PAST $VERB:PAST
ording nennten sie das.
$VERB:PAST
Example 5-25
149
5.2.2.3
Past Participles and Auxiliary Verbs.
The Perfekt and Plusquamperfekt constructions as well as other constructions featuring
past participles also did not show frequent or consistent deviations from the standard.
Nevertheless, in rare cases, past participles of weak verbs appeared with no past participle
suffix –(e)t (Example 5-26) and sometimes featured an elision of the consonant in the
suffix (Example 5-27):
926 *GUE:
%cod:
da hatte ich ein auto gerent mit ein fahrer
$VERB:PZII $DAT:PRE:SIN
Example 5-26
769 *GUE:
%cod:
und dann hatte mein schwager meine schwesters verheirate in
die staaten.
$VERB:PZII
Example 5-27
Also, on a number of occasions forms of past participles were used which in Standard
High German would be considered ungrammatical, e.g.:
119 *GUE:
%cod:
143 *GUE:
%cod:
417 *GUE:
%cod:
588 *GUE:
%cod:
... sie haben dann nicht untergeschrieben ... .
$VERB:PZII
und das hat nicht geschaht ... .
$VERB:PZII
da sind sie morgens aufgestunden ... .
$VERB:PZII
... an de zweiundfünfzig haben diese durchgeben ... .
$VERB:PZII
Example 5-28
Further, the choice of an auxiliary verb in perfect constructions did not always
correspond to the Standard High German grammar and featured, for example, use of
haben with a verb of motion, use of the auxiliary sein with a verb requiring haben, and
both auxiliaries in the same construction:
150
262 *GUE:
%cod:
766 *GUE:
%cod:
275 *GUE:
%cod:
und die, militärisch meistens wie sie mit dem пулемет@r
gefahren haben.
$VERB:AUX
ja und dann bin ich hier gearbeitet aber die löhne waren so
niedrig ... .
$VERB:AUX
... dann sind wir um fünf uhr nach hause gekommen haben.
$VERB:AUX
Example 5-29
5.2.2.4
Reflexive Verbs
It was noticed that the speaker occasionally attributed the reflexive particle sich (in an
apropriate case) to verbs which are not reflexive in SHG, e.g.:
When talking about Mr. Enns‟s mother:
76 *GUE:
… aber sie konnte ihr alles kaufen und hinfahren raus wo sie waren.
176 *GUE:
wir kennen uns nicht dass die deutschen grüßten da sich untereinander … .
802 *GUE:
ja und ich habe internet da horch ich mir deutsche musik dann in
plattdeutsch.
Example 5-30
5.2.3
Nominal Paradigm
5.2.3.1
Plural Forms
Besides various Standard High German ways of forming noun plurals, which the speaker
used quite extensively (e.g. die arbeiter, die krankenhäuser, die dinge, die klassen etc.), a
number of non-standard forms were produced. Some nouns were marked with a plural
ending where it is not required in Standard High German (Example 5-31). Others took a
non-standard plural ending (Example 5-32), while the third were lacking a plural ending
altogether, in rare instances together with apocope of the final vowel (Example 5-33).
151
96 *GUE:
%cod:
115 *GUE:
%cod:
die lehrern waren meistens mennoniten ... .
$NOUN:PLUR
als mein, eine von meine onkels, der hat.
$NOUN:PLUR
Example 5-31
260 *GUE:
%cod:
oh das waren immer die selben films.
$NOUN:PLUR
Example 5-32
275 *GUE:
%cod:
918 *GUE:
%cod:
oder anderthalb stund … .
$NOUN:PLUR
... und alle seine sünde wurden abgewaschen ... .
$NOUN:PLUR
Example 5-33
It is noteworthy that while some of the above-mentioned nouns occurred in free variation
with the standard plural forms (Example 5-34), others, such as onkel, are consistently
used with a non-standard plural morpheme, and some, such as sünde, never took a plural
morpheme.
138 *GUE:
zwei stunden in der woche wurde dann deutsch als fremdsprache.
265 *GUE:
ich kann mich nicht mehr erinnern an all die dinge aber die
filme die waren ... waren immer die selbe.
Example 5-34
5.2.3.2
Noun Gender
Although the grammatical gender of certain nouns used by the speaker occasionally
deviated from that of Standard High German, no noun was assigned the same nonstandard gender consistently and almost all deviant nouns also occurred with standard
marking for grammatical gender at some point during the interview:
152
141 *GUE:
145 *GUE:
185 *GUE:
aber der schulwesen war gut.
...
das schulwesen das war gut das lernen war gut sehr gut ja.
ich kann mich nur an die kirche zwei mal kann ich mich
nur ans kirche denken.
Example 5-35
Further, while very few nouns in this category were given a clear-cut deviating gender
and were never attributed standard gender (e.g. die buchstabieren, den Russland), in the
majority of instances in this category the noun modifiers were missing the final phoneme
indicating gender and case. The speaker himself did not seem to differentiate such forms
from complete ones and they usually appeared in free variation. Although this is
especially noticeable with feminine nouns (Example 5-36), masculine nouns also
exhibited such behaviour (Example 5-37).
25 *GUE:
und unsere stadt das war ein russe_stadt das Bol'shoi Tokmak.
385 *GUE:
mein mutter ging zu dem xx sagte schau mal der vater von
diese kinder.
394 *GUE:
eigentlich unsere mutter hat die gesagt.
Example 5-36
153 *GUE:
für jedes wort du hast eigentlich eine buchstaben im russischen.
201 *GUE:
571 *GUE:
der ist nicht solche große unterschied.
ich weiß nicht was der unterschied ist.
215 *GUE:
als mein, eine von meine onkels, der hat.
Example 5-37
153
5.2.3.3
Gender of Borrowed Nouns
Since in High German nouns are usually preceded by articles, pronouns, or modifying
words which must agree with the noun in case, number, and grammatical gender, the
speaker often assigned gender to English and Russian nouns which he frequently used
while speaking High German.
English nouns were usually marked with gender of their German equivalents, e.g.
der way@e (der Weg), die torture@e (die Qual), ein egg@e (ein Ei), eine flag@e (eine
Flagge), der bill@e (der Schein). The situation with borrowed Russian nouns was
slightly more complicated, since, unlike English, Russian has three grammatical genders.
While in numerous instances the gender of the Russian nouns the speaker used
corresponded to that of the German equivalent (Example 5-38), in others it was
impossible to determine what language the noun gender stems from because of the
coinciding article forms for masculine and neuter nouns in indirect cases (Example 5-39).
The noun пулемёт (das Maschinengewehr) is masculine in Russian but neuter in German:
262 *GUE:
%cod:
und die, militärisch meistens wie sie mit dem пулемёт@r gefahren
haben.
$VERB:AUX
Example 5-38
Nouns that are masculine in both languages:
79 *GUE:
%cod:
294 *GUE:
%cod:
329 *GUE:
%cod:
wenn wir nach Tokmak gingen zum базар@r. (базар=der Markt)
$GEND:RUS
der политрук@r, he_was_a@e малограмотный@r.
(политрук=a person responsible for political education of students)
$CONS:CODE
nur wenn sie vom район@r kamen. (район=der Bezirk)
$GEND:RUS
Example 5-39
154
In other instances, High German clearly took the upper hand in determining noun gender,
as some Russian nouns whose gender was different from that of their High German
equivalents were unmistakably assigned gender of the latter:
The noun правление (die Verwaltung) is neuter in Russian but feminine in German:
244 *GUE:
%cod:
249 *GUE:
%cod:
252 *GUE:
%cod:
... da kamens von der правление@r alle hin.
$GEND:RUS
und die правление@r wusste auch nicht besser.
$GEND:RUS
ich weiß nicht wieviel da waren aber xxx von der правление@r.
$GEND:RUS
Example 5-40
5.2.3.4
Compound Nouns
Another noticeable element of the interviewee‟s usage of nouns is the absence of linking
morphemes (Fugenelement) in many compound nouns, e.g.:
25 *GUE:
%cod:
81 *GUE:
%cod:
116 *GUE:
%cod:
276 *GUE:
%cod:
317 *GUE:
%cod:
318 *GUE:
%cod:
und unsere stadt das war ein russe_stadt das Bol'shoi Tokmak.
$NOUN:COMP
das war die nächste handel_stelle wo sie wirtschaftszeuge und
sowas kauften ... .
$NOUN:COMP
er war auch repressiert an de sieben_dreißig.
$NOUN:COMP
und tag_über gab es kein essen.
$NOUN:COMP
die kamen by@e sonn_aufgang@s to@e sundown@e.
$NOUN:COMP
und das war die arbeit_zeit.
$NOUN:COMP
Example 5-41
155
5.2.4
Pronoun Usage
Very often relative pronouns (which in Standard High German must agree with the
antecedent noun in number and gender and are case-marked based on their syntactic
function in the relative clause they introduce) were substituted by the indeclinable
relative pronoun „was‟, which in SHG it is used with indefinite antecedents such as
„etwas‟, „nichts‟ and with demonstratives such das and „dasselbe‟, but not with a noun
antecedent. In the interviewee‟s speech, however, „was‟ often appeared instead of plural
and feminine nouns (Example 5-42), and sometimes was used in the combination of a
preposition and a relative pronoun (Example 5-43).
47 *GUE:
%cod:
nur die einzige russen was bei uns gewohnt haben ... .
$PRO:REL
697 *GUE:
%cod:
na das war die erste arbeit was wir haben ... .
$PRO:REL
Example 5-42
8 *GUE:
ich weiss nur die zeit was wir aus dem haus gejagt wurden.
784 *GUE:
man muss mehr sprechen und die zeit in dem winter was
ich im winnipeg war.
Example 5-43
Noteworthy is Example 5-44, in which the interviewer produces a phrase in SHG and the
interviewee repeats it but uses a different relative pronoun, gives the adjective a nonstandard ending –e, and attributes a non-standard grammatical gender to the noun
Russland, which in SHG is usually used without an article:
565 *NKP:
566 *GUE:
das waren die ersten die russland verlassen haben.
die erste was den russland verlassen haben, ja.
Example 5-44
156
The speaker frequently formed relative clauses introduced by the plural relative pronoun
„die‟ and sometimes by the pronoun „welch-‟ (Example 5-45). However, he very often
used a combination of both („die welche‟) where either pronoun would be sufficient in
SHG (Example 5-46).
65 *GUE:
... und mit die russen desto das waren gute leute welche wir da hatten,
wir kamen sehr mit aus mit denen.
83 *GUE:
die weiter, welche weiter nach dem süden wohnten, die konnten sehr
wenig russisch auch die kinder nicht.
Example 5-45
161 *GUE:
%cod:
568 *GUE:
%cod:
856 *GUE:
857 *GUE:
%cod:
ja und nein die welche im dorf waren nur oder im nachbardorf.
$CONS:DET
die welche mit vierundzwanzig kamen nur die haben uns heute noch
nicht.
$CONS:DET
nein aber diese hier wohnen viele deusche hier mit den sprechen wir
hochdeutsch ja.
die welche von deutschland kommen.
$CONS:DET
Example 5-46
5.2.5
Adjectival Declension
The declension of adjectives in the interviewee‟s speech often but not always deviated
from the norms of Standard High German. The majority of deviations in adjectival
endings affected plural adjective forms which occurred after the definite article die in the
nominative case. In all of these instances, adjective forms showed apocope of the final
consonant of the „weak‟ adjective ending –en, e.g.:
47 *GUE: nur die einzige russen was bei uns gewohnt haben ... .
%cod: $ADJ
312 *GUE: wenn wir morgens aufwachten die grössere waren zu schule ... .
%cod: $ADJ
731 *GUE: ... wir sind die absterbende, das sind die neue die da kommen.
%cod: $ADJ
Example 5-47
157
Interestingly, all the adjective declension deviations in the dative case involved singular
adjective forms only. Here the adjectives were preceded by the definite article and were
missing the final –n of the „weak‟ adjective ending, e.g.
103 *GUE:
%cod:
453 *GUE:
%cod:
854 *GUE:
%cod:
und die waren in Halbstadt die beim fluss an der andere seite.
$ADJ
der war in der russische armee gewesen ... .
$ADJ
ja wenn wir gehen zur deutsche andacht.
$ADJ
Example 5-48
Similarly, it was noticed that all adjectives which occurred in constructions modified by a
preposition in combination with „de‟ were also given the ending –e instead of the final en obligatory in SHG. Interestingly, all of these instances included singular feminine
nouns only:
193 *GUE:
%cod:
194 *GUE:
%cod:
216 *GUE:
%cod:
die frauen waren an de rechte seite.
$CONS:PR+DE $ADJ
und die männer an de linke seite.
$CONS:PR+DE $ADJ
und ich sag immer das war der beste mann in de ganze welt.
$CONS:PR+DE $ADJ
Example 5-49
Also, adjectives that appeared without an article or a der- or ein-word, and which would
have to be given a „strong‟ ending showing the gender, number and case of the associated
noun in SHG, were sometimes lacking the final consonant. Surprisingly, in all such
instances the adjectives were missing the masculine nominative or feminine dative ending
-r:
158
358 *GUE:
%cod:
und der hatte mehr kraft als deutsche kommunist.
$ADJ
401 *GUE:
%cod:
und zu damalige zeit mussten drei kläger sein.
$ADJ
587 *GUE:
%cod:
kam xx aus russische gefangenschaft ... .
$ADJ
Example 5-50
5.2.6 Indefinite Article
Several times during the interview the speaker used a form of an indefinite article which
does not exist in SHG. In addition to the standard three singular forms (masculine, neuter,
and feminine), the form „eine‟ was found to modify or refer to plural nouns and pronouns,
e.g.:
8 *GUE:
9 *GUE:
ich weiss nur die zeit was wir aus dem haus gejagt wurden.
und dass wir eine schlechte zeiten hatten.
97 *GUE:
98 *GUE:
wir hatten mennoniten da.
und eigentlich noch eine wir nannten die kolonisten, ja, das waren
die hochdeutschen xxx.
349 *GUE:
nu wir waren eine von die letzte, da waren schon mehrere, die
waren schon früher ausgesiedelt als wir.
Example 5-51
5.2.7
Prepositions
While the prepositions in the interviewee‟s speech were usually used in full
correspondence with the norms of SHG, several deviations occurred in the interview.
Some constructions in which a preposition is required in SHG were lacking a preposition
altogether (Example 5-52), and others occasionally featured non-standard prepositions
(interestingly, all of these examples are connected with the noun „Seite‟ (Example 5-53).
416 *GUE:
... aber unsere eltern wußten welche tage die kamen.
Example 5-52
159
103 *GUE:
%cod:
und die waren in Halbstadt die beim fluss an der andere seite.
$PREP:MISC
183 *GUE:
wenn wir mit den ивановцы@r zank hatten dann waren die russen an
unsere seite ... .
$PREP:MISC
%cod:
Example 5-53
The speaker‟s use of the preposition „an‟ in the constructions shown in Example 5-52
may be attributed to the English or Russian influence as both languages have
constructions [on + modifier + side] and [на + modifier + сторонe], in both of which the
prepositions correspond to the SHG „an‟.
Further, the preposition zu, especially when modifying such nouns as Kirche or Schule,
was frequently used without a definite article (or featured an –r elision), which is
required in SHG:
791 *GUE:
ich ging zu schule und dann auch noch auf die straße.
966 *GUE:
ich bin eigentlich nur einmal da zu kirche gegangen.
Example 5-54
Further, constructions in which a specific year was named more often than not deviated
from the standard. In some of these constructions a variety of non-standard prepositions
occurred (Example 5-55).
86 *NKP:
87 *GUE:
%cod:
und wann haben sie die schule angefangen?
am sechsunddreißig.
$PREP:YEAR
When talking about the wave of immigrants who came to Canada in 1874:
568 *GUE:
%cod:
890 *GUE:
%cod:
die welche mit vierundzwanzig kamen nur die haben uns heute
noch nicht.
$PREP:YEAR
... an neunundvierzig kam einer von Winnipeg.
$PREP:YEAR
Example 5-55
160
Nevertheless, in the majority of instances, specific years were preceded by the
combination of the preposition „an‟ followed by the form „de‟ (Example 5-56). This
combination occurred seventeen times during the interview.
476 *NKP:
477 *GUE:
%cod:
478*GUE:
%cod:
und wie haben sie dann russland verlassen?
an de vierunddreißig.
$CONS:PR+DE
an de dreiundvierzig, ja.
$CONS:PR+DE
561 GUE:
das sind mennoniten die sind hergekommen an de
achtzehnvierundsiebzig.
$CONS:PR+DE
an de achtundvierzig und an de neunundvierzig kam xxx aus
russische gefangenschaft
$CONS:PR+DE
%cod:
587 *GUE:
%cod:
Example 5-56
It is interesting that the form „de‟ also occurred several times during the interview and
clearly fulfilled the role of a definite article modifying an adjective, which in each
instance was also assigned a „simplified‟ ending not showing the number, gender, or case
of the modified noun (Example 5-49).
5.2.8
Other Types of Deviations
5.2.8.1
Multiple Negation.
Although constructions involving more than one negation are not preferred in SHG, the
interviewee produced such constructions on several occasions:
316 *GUE:
da war auch niemand nicht zu hause.
458 *GUE:
und dann haben wir die nächste paar jahre haben wir
überhaupt keine deutsche soldaten nicht gesehen.
Example 5-57
161
While double negations are also not preferred in modern English, such constructions are
standard in Russian, e.g. [никого дома не было] (no one was not at home), or [не
видели никаких немецких солдат] (did not see none German soldiers).
5.2.8.2
„Um … zu‟ Constructions
In constructions of purpose which in SHG are introduced by um … zu, various parts were
often missing in the interviewee‟s speech, or the entire construction was simply omitted
where it is required in SHG, resulting in an ungrammatical statement (Example 5-58):
Missing „um‟:
886 *GUE:
%cod:
sagt du warst alt genug mit dem gewehr zu schlafen.
(SHG)
um mit dem gewehr zu schlafen.
$CONS:UM+ZU
Missing ‚zu„ + verb:
90 *GUE:
das ging da, die nahmen von sechs bis acht jahre weil nicht
genug kinder um eine volle klasse waren.
(SHG) waren, um eine volle klasse zu haben.
%cod:
$CONS:UM+ZU
Um ... zu missing altogether:
297 *GUE:
%cod:
er hatte ein ding aufgestellt eine granate reinwerfen.
(SHG) um eine granate reinzuwerfen.
$CONS:UM+ZU
Example 5-58
162
5.2.8.3
Determiner Accumulation
Although in rare instances in SHG multiple determiners (e.g. definite and indefinite
articles, quantifiers, possessive, and demonstrative pronouns, etc) may appear (Eisenberg,
2004, p. 149), they are usually in complementary distribution. The speaker, however,
frequently used several determiners together, producing constructions that would be
considered ungrammatical in SHG (Example 5-59).
130 *GUE:
%cod:
mein ein cousin, der war so gut im malen... .
$CONS:DET
734 *GUE:
%cod:
aber solang die unsere eltern da waren, zu den war das fremd... .
$CONS:DET
Example 5-59
Also, the speaker often used these multiple determiners in combination with relative
clauses introduced by the relative pronoun „welch-‟, which is not preferred in SHG:
818 *GUE:
%cod:
die eine diese tante welche da gestorben ist ... .
$CONS:DET
874 *GUE:
%cod:
... ich sagte von dem einen welcher mich aus dem lager jagen wollte.
$CONS:DET
Example 5-60
5.2.8.4
Constructions of Possession
As the genitive case was only used once during the entire interview (Example 5-1), the
speaker used alternative grammatical means to express possession. One of them was the
postnominal „von + dative‟ construction, which is fully acceptable in SHG:
887 *GUE:
das war das ende von dem interview... .
Example 5-61
163
Since, as already shown, the interviewee did not consistently assign the dative case to the
complements of dative prepositions, a variant of this construction with von followed by
nominative/accusative was also produced:
385 *GUE:
%cod:
386 *GUE:
mein mutter ging zu dem xx sagte schau mal der vater von diese kinder.
$DAT:PRE:PLU $CONS:POSS
was der für dich getan hat.
Example 5-62
Another possessive construction that the speaker used quite often is a variant of the
combination of the possessor noun in the dative case with a possessive pronoun agreeing
with the possessed noun in gender and number (Example 5-63). Marked as „im höchsten
Maße … umgangsprachlich‟, this construction is considered incorrect in SHG by Duden
(“gilt standardsprachlich als falsch”) (“Genitivattribut”, 2001).
.
Meinem Vater sein Freund.
Example 5-63 (“Genitivattibut”, 2001)
The speaker, however, used this construction a number of times but never assigned the
dative case to the possessor noun, e.g.:
377 *GUE:
%cod:
... mein vater sein bruder war da.
$CONS:POSS
526 *GUE:
%cod:
und zu der zeit kam Roosevelt seine frau.
$CONS:POSS
846 *GUE:
genauso meine schwester ihre kinder die kamen als kinder
nach russland hin.
$CONS:POSS
%cod:
Example 5-64
A further construction was used to convey the meaning of what in Standard High German
would take the form of “der Sohn eines Kulaken”21 (Example 5-65).
21
The word der Kulak, from the Russian кулак, is a historic term which was used in the early years of the
Soviet Union to refer to a person, predominantly among peasants, who was wealthier than regular citizens.
164
129 *GUE:
%cod:
etliche durften auch nicht weil ein kulaker sohn, hat er schwer
woanders hinzukommen.
$CONS:POSS
Example 5-65
The noun Kulak in this example was used as a denominal adjective and, similar to
geographical names, indicated possession by adding the suffix –er.
5.2.9
Lexical Domain
5.2.9.1
Non-standard Usage of High German Lexemes
The speech produced by the interviewee clearly reflects his knowledge of Russian and
English. In addition, his usage of a few High German lexemes can be considered nonstandard. For example, the verb horchen was consistently used instead of hören (Example
5-66), the noun Großkinder, presumably formed by analogy with such kinship terms as
Großmutter, Großvater (most likely formed by analogy with the English
[grand+son/daughter/children]), seems to have replaced the SHG Enkel (Example 5-67).
241 *GUE:
%cod:
802 *GUE:
%cod:
und du konntsche den lautsprecher anstellen oder abstellen
aber zu setzen was du horchen wolltest nein das gab es nicht.
$VOC
ja und ich habe internet da horch ich mir deutsche musik
dann in plattdeutsch.
$VOC
Example 5-66
709 *GUE:
%cod:
852 *GUE:
%cod:
und darum ging es so auch unsere kinder auch so ihre
großkinder xxx unterschrift
$VOC
wenn die kinder und die großkinder kommen dann ist es
Englisch.
$VOC
Example 5-67
165
Only a few other lexemes were clearly given a very different meaning than they have in
SHG (Example 5-68) or were not a part of SHG vocabulary:
42 *GUE:
43 *GUE:
44 *GUE:
%cod:
es [das Dorf] war geteilt in vollwirtschaften halbwirtschaften.
und dann kam eine anlage die, wo die arbeiter waren und der
hirte waren und dampfmühle und windmühle waren.
so so war das verlebt.
$VOC
Example 5-68
416 *GUE:
%cod:
ich weiß noch wie es gewindig kam ich weiß nicht grade an
welchem tag das war ...
$VOC
Example 5-69
5.2.9.2
The Influence of the Russian Language
The influence of the Russian language on the interviewee‟s speech was felt to be limited
to a number of cultural borrowings, all of which were used in the first half of the
interview when the interviewee was talking about his life in the Soviet Union. Almost all
of the borrowed Russian nouns refer to objects and realities of everyday life specific to
Soviet Ukraine of the time and usually do not have equivalents in German or English.
Some of these borrowings include:
Russian word
НКВД
махорка
малограмотный
семилетка
тачанка
колхоз
Definition
NKVD (People‟s Commissariat for Internal Affairs),the
predecessor of the KGB.
Cheap tobacco used for rolling home-made cigarettes.
An illiterate person. Since illiteracy was a widespread
phenomenon in the pre-WWII Soviet Union, this was a very
common word at the time.
A school for grades 1-7. A rough equivalent of an elementary
school in Ontario.
A horse-drawn cart or an open wagon with a machinegun installed
at the back.
A collective farm, a unit in the Communist agricultural system.
Example 5-70
166
Although the interviewee perceives the Slavic language he spoke as a child as Russian,
some of the core borrowings he used, e.g. яйко@r (an egg) or могылы@r (graves), are
not standard lexemes of the Russian language and might be the traces of an intermediate
variety between Russian and Ukrainian spoken in the area.
5.2.9.3
The Influence of the English Language
The influence of English on the interviewee‟s language was much more evident. While
borrowings from Russian consisted exclusively of nouns, the speaker relied on
constructions of the English language much more frequently and, in addition to nouns,
borrowed lexemes from a wide range of word classes. These included discourse markers
(well, actually), a conjunction (then), prepositions (with, by), and interjections such as yes
and no. The majority of the English nouns Mr. Enns used in his speech were usually
nonce borrowings and had German equivalents, e.g. history, bill, mine, pipe, flag, square,
separator, etc.
Further, besides borrowing English lexemes into High German discourse, the
speaker incorporated English morphemes into High German words on several occasions:
11 *GUE:
und dann die befreundness@s der deutschen armee.
317 *GUE:
die kamen by@e sun_aufgang@s to_sundown@e.
Example 5-71
Further, English influence also manifested itself in a construction which is clearly a
translation from English and does not exist in SHG:
646 *GUE:
daran bin ich aus geld gelaufen.
then I ran out of money.
Example 5-72
167
Finally, while the speaker never code-switched into Russian, he frequently produced
complete utterances in English. While doing so, he always spoke not from the perspective
of someone who grew up with the Russian language, but rather from the perspective of an
English-speaker. Thus, when talking about a large network of ancient barrows typical to
the steppes of Southern Ukraine where Mr. Enns grew up, he referred to it several times
by a combination of a Russian and an English word:
29 *GUE:
30 *GUE:
31 *GUE:
32 *NKP:
33 *GUE:
34 *GUE:
35 *GUE:
36 *GUE:
die wenn die durchzogen die nomaden oder wie die waren da gingte der
могылы@r way@e.
maybe_you_know_about_that@e?
могыл@r могылы@r da waren.
oh, могылы!
ja, von strecke zu strecke da waren grosse erdhaufen von einem bis
zu nächsten konnte man sehen wenn man aufging.
und das war die strecke von wenn sie von Mariupol vom Kaukas die die
traders@e kamen.
und in Tokmak da da haben die sich getroffen.
we_called_it могылы@r way@e.
Example 5-73
It is interesting that Mr. Enns does not only switch to English before quoting himself as a
child in utterance 36 but that he also claims to have used a half-Russian, half-English
name, which is impossible because he possessed no knowledge of English as a child and
therefore had to use German or a Russian phrase (or a combination of both).
5.3
Conclusion
The pilot study successfully fulfilled its initial objectives. It has shown that the selected
interview contains a wealth of linguistic data needed to answer the research questions of
the study that concern the grammatical specifics of spoken High German of Russian
Mennonites in Canada. Further, the pilot study has shown that in the interviewee‟s speech
168
there are a number of constructions which are not a part of SHG, and that at times
deviations from the norms of SHG are quite significant. Having such a large number and
variety of linguistic specifics in the pilot interview was especially useful for categorizing
the grammatical phenomena exhibited by the interviewee and for creating the system of
codes to be used for further transcriptions. However, some of the codes discussed in
chapter 4 were added at a later point to cover the grammatical specifics that
systematically occurred in further interviews. Finally, the pilot study determined that both
the CHAT transcription system and CLAN (the analysis software) selected for the project
are very suitable for the purposes of this dissertation and provide all necessary means to
answer the main research questions of the dissertation.
The analysis conducted in this chapter will also serve as the basis for the analysis
carried out in chapters six and seven. Thus, the next chapter contains content analysis of
the interviews in each set and compares them to each other, focusing mainly on various
sociolinguistic issues, while chapter seven expands the grammatical analysis conducted in
this pilot study and concentrates on those categories which are typical to both interview
sets. The results of the analysis of each set are then compared to each other. Although the
pilot study considered an interview from the second set of interviews only, the system of
codes that resulted from this analysis was later found to be fully applicable to the
interviews of the first data set.
169
6.
SOCIOLINGUISTIC ANALYSIS
This chapter presents the results of the comparative content analysis of the two interview
sets. While the main focus is on the Russian Mennonites‟ patterns of language use and on
how these patterns have changed with time, the chapter also examines and compares
various sociolinguistic factors surrounding language use by each of the groups. Thus, the
primary goal of this chapter is to examine when, how, with whom, and in what settings
each of the languages from the Russian Mennonites‟ repertoire was used in Russia, and
how the situation has changed in Canada since their immigration. This chapter also
discusses the speakers‟ attitudes towards their languages and examines issues of language
maintenance and of the shift to English as the language of religion. A structural analysis
of the interviews is presented in the next chapter.
Since the information contained in each interview set covers a different historical
period, which nevertheless overlap to a certain degree (e.g. the 1920s in Russia or the
years in Canada after the arrival of the third wave until 1976), it was decided to subdivide
the chapter into three sections which follow the group‟s migration path in chronological
order. Thus, section 6.1 examines the years both groups spent in Russia, section 6.2
covers the time the respondents spent in Germany and South America (for some
participants) prior to their immigration to Canada, and section 6.3 analyzes the
respondents‟ experiences in Canada. Further, because the data contained in both
interview sets can be conveniently grouped around similar core topics, the information in
each section is not presented in strict chronological order but instead is organized around
a number of categories for sociolinguistic analysis (as presented in chapter 4), in most of
170
which the two groups are compared to each other. This comparative analysis provides the
necessary basis for the discussion of the linguistic characteristics of the group‟s High
German variety presented in chapter 7.
At this point it is necessary to stress that the first set of interviews was conducted
for a historical as opposed to a linguistic project, and therefore the data relevant to this
dissertation contained in set one are less extensive than those obtained from the second
set. As a result, it was not always possible to compare both groups in every single
category. Also, many topics relevant to the project were mentioned by the respondents of
the first set only indirectly, and therefore certain conclusions about the linguistic
behaviour of the second-wave immigrants had to be deduced on the basis of other
information found in the interviews. Lastly, unlike in the second set, where an attempt
was made to elicit respondents‟ opinions on the same topic or answers to the same
question from as many participants as possible, information on the questions of interest to
this dissertation in the first set was sometimes fragmentary and was often provided only
briefly and incidentally. Considering this, I have deliberately tried to avoid making
generalizations based on insufficient information.
6.1
In Russia
6.1.1
The Village World
A reasonable point at which to start the discussion seems to be the well-known „world of
villages‟ which Mennonites established in Russia and which is known have enabled them
to foster their culture in almost complete isolation from the other speech communities (as
pointed out in section 3.3.2). The lifestyle Mennonites had in Russia in the early
twentieth century, described by the second-wave immigrants, perfectly fits this classic
171
picture of the village world. Of the twenty-one participants of the first set, six were born
and grew up on private Mennonite estates (auf einem Gut) and one participant on a
Mennonite a collection of a small number of individual farmsteads (хутор), all of which
were populated entirely by Mennonites and were located a considerable distance from
other settlements. The farmstead owners and their families were usually quite wealthy
and because of the remote location of their property became a prime target of robbers and
bandit groups during the Civil War (1918-1922). As a result, almost all of the estate
inhabitants fled to the larger Mennonite villages soon after 1917.
Most of the villages to which these wealthier Mennonite families fled from their
estates can be classified as „closed‟ Mennonite villages. The residents of some of these
villages (for example, Mariewohl in the Gnadenfelder district of the Molotschna) were
not only exclusively Mennonite, but were also carefully selected by the village
authorities. As several respondents mentioned, not only was it illegal for non-Mennonites
to own property in their villages, but even Mennonites interested in acquiring property in
the village had first to be approved by the village council. Despite such strict selection
and the fact that all the property in the village was owned by Mennonites, it is very likely
that there was always some, possibly even a significant presence of the local Slavic
population in the Mennonite villages and, until the Civil War, on the Mennonite estates.
First of all, because of the Mennonites‟ tremendous economic success, especially in the
agricultural and industrial sector, they were selling their products to non-Mennonites
from the neighbouring settlements. Further, numerous respondents from the first group
mentioned having Russian servants, labourers, and contractors. Since Russian women
were usually employed in the household as cooks, maids, or servants, it is very likely that
172
they stayed with their Mennonite employers all year round. The Slavic men, by contrast,
mostly worked on the land. A few of them were reported to work for Mennonites all year
round, but the number of Russian workers usually increased drastically during the
summer period. Taking into account the description by one interviewee of the poor
conditions provided by the Mennonites for the Russian workers, which included
accommodation, it can be concluded that at least a part of the Russian workers stayed in
the Mennonite villages for the season, if not longer. While it is very difficult to estimate
numerically how significant the presence of Slavic workers was in the Mennonite
villages, it can be said with confidence that having a number of local workers did require
the Mennonites who dealt with them to have some rudimentary knowledge of the
workers‟ language. Also, even though definitely not all Mennonites were wealthy enough
to hire Russian workers, it seems quite logical that having a considerable number of
Russian speakers in the village for prolonged periods must have exposed the other
Mennonite villagers to the Russian language. Although no second-wave immigrants were
asked whether they learned any Russian from the Slavic workers, several participants of
the second interview set reported this to be the case for their parents, who in terms of age
were relatively close to the second-wave immigrants considered in the study.
Quite different, however, was the case of those Russian-speaking families who
usually were the village shepherds. While hiring workers from the local Slavic population
must have stopped among Mennonites during the 1920s (none of the participants in the
second interview set reported any such cases among their generation), the custom of
hiring a Russian-speaking family to live in the Mennonite village and to fulfill the role of
the shepherds survived until World War II reached the Soviet Union. Interestingly, unlike
173
the other Slavic workers, who most likely caused Mennonite employers to acquire some
knowledge of their language, the families of the village shepherds acquired the languages
spoken in the village (Plautdietsch, High German, or both) and their children usually
attended the local school together with the Mennonites. Although this scenario was very
frequently reported by the third-wavers, but was mentioned by only one respondent of the
first set, it is very likely that this situation was already well established before the turn of
the century, as it was reported to be typical by one of the oldest speakers in the sample,
born in 1888.
The situation of the third-wave immigrants was already somewhat different.
Slightly more than half of the second set participants (thirteen out of twenty-four to be
precise; two of these respondents were from the same village) characterized the village
where they grew up as a „geschlossenes deutsches/mennonitisches Dorf‟ (a closed
German/Mennonite village).22 However, this description turned out to include one or
sometimes several Russian families living among Mennonites with one of them
inevitably being the village shepherds, who, as mentioned above, learned the German
varieties spoken by the Mennonites and whose children attended Mennonite schools. In
fact, only three of these thirteen respondents did not mention having Russian-speaking
shepherds in their village. It is also interesting to mention that many second set
participants reported that the children of the shepherds were completely fluent in the
German variety spoken in the village, whereas their parents usually developed mostly
receptive abilities.
22
The adjectives „German‟ and „Mennonite‟ were often used interchangeably by the interviewees in both
sets with no clear preference of one term over the other unless the context involved non-Mennonite
speakers of German. A more detailed discussion of this issue is located in section 6.1.3 of this chapter.
174
However, this situation was slowly changing in some villages, as two participants
(both born in 1923) claimed that their villages were „closed‟ at first (excluding the
Russian shepherds, of course), but that later members of other speech communities
started to move in:
“Am Anfang waren nur Mennoniten da, aber dann kamen Russen
und Kazapen23 und die kamen da alle hin und die wohnten da
alle.”
(At first there were only Mennonites there but later the
Russians and the Katsaps came; they all moved there and they
all lived there.)
Finally, as many as six respondents (twenty-five percent of the sample), two of whom
lived in the same village, reported that besides Mennonites their villages were inhabited
by significant numbers of Russians and Ukrainians, and sometimes by Germans of other
denominations, as well as by some Jewish families.
Further, an interesting pattern becomes noticeable if one compares the
respondents‟ year of birth with their classification of the villages in which they grew up.
The two respondents who remember their villages to be exclusively Mennonite at first but
later witnessed a number of Russian speakers move there were both born in 1923. At the
same time, all six participants who reported to have other ethnic groups in their villages
were three to ten years younger (three of them were born between 1926 and 1929 and
three between 1931 and 1933). Considering the fact that all participants were born in the
settlements that were once established by Mennonites with no other ethnic groups
23
Although it is not clear what ethnic group the speaker referred to by the term „Kazapen‟ (which derives
from „кацап‟, a derogative Ukrainian term denoting „a Russian person‟), but when used by the speakers in
the second set of interviews in all likelihood it referred to Ukrainians. It is quite interesting that „хохол‟, the
Russian derogatorye term for „a Ukrainian‟, appeared in High German speech of Russian Mennonites as
„chocholsch‟ and referred not to the Ukrainian language but to the intermediate variety between Russian
and Ukrainian spoken by the uneducated part of the local population.
175
present, it can be said with confidence that the five settlements classified as „mixed‟ had
already undergone the change when the respondents were growing up.
Village type:
# of respondents
(out of 24) (set 2)
Respondents’
date of birth
„Closed
village‟
„Closed‟ changing to
„Mixed‟
„Mixed‟
Not
specified
13
2
6
3
1918-1934
1923
1926-1933
1924-1938
Table 6-1: Respondents‟ native villages
Further, looking at the geographical location and the economic conditions of the „mixed‟
and „closed‟ villages did not reveal any special patterns, except for confirming the
obvious observation that the larger, centrally located and economically better developed
villages (e.g. Chortitza-Rosenthal in Chortitza, Ohrloff or Gradenfeld in the Molotschna),
were more likely to have speakers of other languages living among the Mennonites than
the smaller, more remote villages.
The other two important events which brought all Mennonites in southern Ukraine
(including those from the completely „closed‟ villages) into more intensive contact with
Russian speakers must also be mentioned here. The first is the implementation of the
collective farm system from the late 1920s onward. The administration of these collective
farms was usually Russian-speaking and since all Mennonite farmers were forced to join
a „колхоз‟ (a collective farm), most of them came into direct or indirect contact with the
administration, even if the members of the collective farms were sometimes Mennonites
only (this was also reported as typical in the south of the Molotschna colony, where often
no other settlements existed). The second is the obligatory complete switch of all
Mennonite schools to the Russian language in 1938, which brought some Russianspeaking teachers to most Mennonite villages. Although the respondents in the second
group claim that some Mennonite teachers were allowed to stay in the Mennonite schools
176
and teach in Russian after 1938, they were always in the minority compared to the
Russian and Ukrainian teachers.
To summarize, it can be said that the world of isolated Mennonite villages that
Mennonite settlers established in southern Russia at the end of the eighteenth century has
partially survived for as long as Mennonites lived there but underwent significant
transformation between the 1920s and the Second World War. Although before the
second wave of Mennonite emigrants left Russia most Mennonite villages were populated
entirely by Mennonites, most likely there were always some Russian speakers in the
Mennonite villages, whether they were servants, labourers, or came there to trade.
Speaking about the further development of these villages, we can identify two opposite
tendencies. On the one hand, some villages, usually larger and economically developed,
were subject to increasing contact with Russian speakers and saw a number of nonMennonite families move in. On the other hand, because of the Soviet economic policies
and the general impoverishment of the population, it was no longer possible for
Mennonites to hire local workers, and consequently some Mennonite villages became
even more secluded than before. The last point is consistent with the fact that all three
respondents in the second set who claimed that their parents might have picked up some
Russian from the Russian workers classified their own villages as „closed‟.
177
6.1.2 Education
The schooling system created by Mennonites in Russia is in itself a fascinating topic,
especially in the context of the languages the group used. Since the Mennonite education
system in general has already been discussed in Chapter 3, it should suffice to mention
here that High German was firmly established as the language of instruction in the
Mennonite schools in southern Russia from the early nineteenth century and that, except
for several brief attempts by the tsarist government to russify the Mennonites at the end
of the nineteenth century, High German enjoyed the status of the sole school language
until 1938, when it became illegal to use any language other than Russian in all schools in
the USSR. In this section, I will first take a brief look at the education of the second- and
the third-wave immigrants, and then will devote specific attention a) to the role the
Russian language played in the education of the former and b) to the switch of Mennonite
schools to Russian in 1938 and how it was perceived by the Mennonites.
First of all, it should be mentioned that the participants of the first set of
interviews usually had significantly more years of formal education than the third wavers
considered in this project. Thus, all twenty respondents from the first set whose level of
education was mentioned in the interviews had completed primary schools, which as a
rule consisted of seven years for boys and six years for girls. Eighteen of these
participants studied in Mennonite secondary schools (Zentralschulen), with only two
respondents not completing it for various, mostly economic reasons. Finally, as many as
eight respondents (forty percent of the sample) studied at post-secondary educational
institutions either in the Mennonite colonies (usually trade and commerce schools or
teacher academies) or in the Russian cities (for degrees in teaching, agriculture,
178
technology, etc.). In addition, at least three more participants mentioned their intention to
study at a Russian university, which for many was no longer possible after the Revolution
because of the Civil War and the subsequent emigration. A brief summary of the first set
participants‟ education is presented in Table 6-2.
Total # of
respondents with
known level of
education (set 1):
20
Completed
primary
school:
20
Studied at a
Mennonite
secondary
school:
18
Attended a
Mennonite
institution of
higher education:
5
Attended a
Russian
institution of
higher education:
3
Table 6-2: First set participants‟ education level
Further, although none of the participants discussed above studied in Germany, one of
them mentioned several Mennonite acquaintances of his who attended universities in
Germany, and one participant worked as a design engineer (Konstrukteur, Zeichner) in
Ilmenau (Thüringen) before World War I.
How drastically the situation has changed in just two decades becomes noticeable
if we take a look at the education Russian Mennonites received in the 1930s. Unlike the
participants in the first set, the education of all third-wavers considered in this study was
interrupted by World War II and was significantly affected by their subsequent flight to
the West, and then by their emigration from Germany (as will be discussed later, a
number of the second set respondents left Germany for South America and immigrated to
Canada at a later stage). As a result, the education of many second set participants was
broken, incomplete, and usually scattered between several educational systems. Thus,
only four of the second set participants (born between 1918 and 1924) were old enough to
have graduated from high school (which included ten school years) before the summer of
1941. The remaining twenty respondents were not able to finish their schooling before
1941 and had to continue their education under the German occupation (between 1942
179
and 1943), in Poland (1944), Germany (1945 and later) and then in some cases in South
America and/or Canada.
It needs to be stressed that this situation was very typical among the younger third
wave immigrants, who received their education in the 1930s, whereas the education of
the older members of the third wave (born before 1920) must have been very similar to
that of the first set participants. It is interesting that while many respondents in the second
set had older relatives who had received post-secondary education in the USSR, they
mentioned that it was becoming difficult for their older siblings to be accepted into
Russian universities because of their German ethnicity and their refusal to join the
Komsomol (the Young Communist League) or the Communist Party.
Very interesting is the fact that while the schooling the third-wavers received
before 1938 was conducted entirely in High German, the education of most secondwavers considered in this study usually involved quite a bit of instruction in the Russian
language. Thus, one of the participants (born in 1897) mentioned that two languages
(Russian and High German) were regularly used in Mennonite primary schools after
grade two and that there was an obligatory exam in the Russian language. Another
second-waver (also born in 1897), who worked as a teacher in the Molotschna, said that
two-thirds of his teaching was done in Russian.
Further support for this was found in the second set of interviews. Thus, a
participant born in 1924 mentioned that when his mother went to school “die Lehrer
waren alle darauf bedacht die Schüler auch in Russisch zu lernen. Früher vielleicht mehr
wie nach der Revolution”. The same respondent also mentioned that while working as a
teacher one of his relatives “hat sogar das Russische extra eingeführt, die Kinder sollten
180
Russisch lernen. … Das ist noch vor der Revolution.” Another two participants (born in
1926 and 1924) also mentioned that their parents had most if not all of their education in
this language:
E. Dridger:
J. Driedger:
E. Dridger:
J. Driedger:
Unsere Eltern … als die zu Schule gingen, die hatten bloß
Russisch. Meine Mutter hat Russisch gelernt, ich weiß nicht wann
das ins Deutsche überging.
Ja, das war noch unter den Zaren. Mein Vater auch. … Die hatten
dann nur Russisch in der Schule eine Zeitlang.
Ja, die sprachen perfekt Russisch. Meine Mutter war eine Lehrerin.
Wenn mein Vater rechnete, dann rechnete er immer in Russisch.
Such claims clearly indicate that before the Revolution of 1917 Mennonites indeed made
a serious attempt to introduce their youth to the Russian language through schools.
Interestingly, as many speakers from the second set indicated, this initiative was
completely abandoned soon after the Revolution; and High German again became the
only language of school instruction until 1938.
Further, it is quite noteworthy that although a significant part of the Mennonite
education in pre-revolutionary Russia was conducted in the Russian language, not a
single participant from the first set expressed dissatisfaction or any negative feelings
about it. This is indeed surprising, especially if one takes into account the fact that using
Russian as a language of instruction was not initiated by the Mennonites themselves but
was imposed on them by the tsarist government as a part of its reforms.
It is quite interesting to compare this to the experiences of the second-set
participants. Unlike the second-wavers, who willingly agreed to receive a significant part
of their education in the Russian language, the education of the third-wavers seems to
have concentrated much more on making the Mennonite children proficient in High
German only. Thus, Russian was clearly not given much attention before 1938 and was
181
usually taught only as a foreign language (one hour a week) or sometimes was not taught
at all. High German, on the other hand, was the only language to be used in school both
by the teachers and the students. Furthermore, several participants also reported that their
schools insisted that the students use High German for informal conversations with each
other in the school yard (while for the majority it was natural to switch to Plautdietsch in
informal situations) and that it was forbidden to speak Plautdietsch on the school
grounds.
Such disregard for the Russian language backfired on Mennonites in the fall of
1938, when the Bolsheviks determined that German should only be taught as a foreign
language starting in grade five (Moelleken, 1992, p. 70). Most German-speaking teachers
were now replaced with Russian and Ukrainian teachers, and High German was taught as
a foreign language for one hour a week only starting in grade five. The switch occurred
abruptly and resulted in complete frustration for many Mennonite children, whose
abilities in Russian were not sufficient to successfully continue the program in a different
language. Four second-set participants explicitly mentioned how difficult it was for them
to adjust to the language switch, and how their marks suffered because of it. For example,
E. Toews (born in 1923) remembers: “in der Schule wir haben viel auswendig gelernt.
Wir wussten gar nicht was wir sagten. … Als es [Russisch] Fremdsprache war, war es
nicht so schwer …. aber als alles in Russisch war und die russischen Schriftsteller und
die langen Geschichten kamen, wir mussten es alles durchlesen, das war schwer.” Also,
one of the participants, who had finished grade six of the German school, reported that
after his school switched to Russian, he stopped attending it because he did not
understand anything.
182
That said, however, the switch of Mennonite schools to Russian did not ruin the
education of all the Mennonite children and teenagers who were affected by it. For
example, two speakers in the second set, who were born in 1923 in the Ohrloff and
Gnadenfeld villages of the Molotschna colony, finished grade seven of the Mennonite
school when the switch to Russian took place in 1938. Although one of the participants
remembers having some difficulties in the Russian school initially, both were planning to
attend a Russian university after school.
The principal difference between the education of the two groups of participants,
however, is not the length, level, or continuity of their education, but rather their attitude
to the language of school instruction. Thus, the speakers of the first set willingly accepted
Russian alongside High German as a language of instruction for some disciplines in their
schools, despite the fact that generally they had less contact with the Russian-speaking
population than Mennonites in the 1930s, and that their contact was usually of the
employer-to-workers character. The education of the second set participants, in contrast,
usually concentrated heavily on raising the Mennonite youth with High German as the
primary language and typically left very limited space in the academic curriculum for
teaching the Russian language. Therefore, it becomes evident that something had changed
in the Mennonites‟ attitude to the Russian language between the time when the two
groups received their education. The factors that might be held responsible for this
change are presented and discussed in the next section.
183
6.1.3 Self-identification, Patriotism and Attitudes to the State
It is interesting that participants in both sets viewed themselves as „Deutsche‟ (Germans)
and used this term interchangeably with the term „Mennoniten‟ (Mennonites), despite the
religious connotation of the latter. Thus, almost every speaker in the sample referred to
him- or herself as „Deutsch‟ at some point of the interview. For example, when talking
about a specific way Mennonite households were set up in Russia, Maria Toews (born in
1905), asked the interviewer: “wissen Sie, was eine Sommerstube im deutschen Heim
war?” Later she frequently referred to herself as German, for example, when talking
about the times when she did not know enough English to communicate with her
employers in Canada: “na ja, eine deutsche Frau weiß das ohne das ihr das gezeigt
wird”. Another first-set interviewee, Johann Wichert (born in 1897), when explaining the
set up of the colony where he lived, said “wir waren unter mennonitischer Verwaltung,
wir waren bloss Deutsche”. A wealth of similar examples can be drawn from almost
every interview in the sample, including the second set: [Interviewer:] Und das waren
Mennoniten? – [Horst Rempel, born in 1926:] Ja, das waren die Deutsche” or Peter Pauls
(born in 1931) when commenting on the German occupation of the Mennonite colonies
during World War II: “Die deutschen Soldaten freuten sich natürlich auch mitten in
Russland auf einmal deutsche Leute anzutreffen”.
On the other hand, the Mennonites‟ usage of the term „Deutsch‟ was significantly
wider than „Mennonit‟ and encompassed all German speakers regardless of religious
affiliation. For example, when talking about the way land in Russia was given to the
foreign colonists but not to the native population, Abram Wall (born in 1902) mentioned:
“damals, der durchschnittliche mennonitische, lutherische, katholische, deutsche Bauer,
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der wusste ja nicht was hinter den Kulissen vorging”. Similarly, William Andres (born in
1902), when telling the story of his trip to Moscow from the Molotschna, said: “und so
versammelten wir uns dort im Norden zwölf Tausend Deutsche, meist alles Mennoniten,
kleiner Prozent Lutheraner und Katholiken”.
Interestingly, in those situations when it was necessary to distinguish between the
Mennonites and the other groups of ethnic Germans, besides the religious description (die
Lutheraner, die Katholiken, etc.) speakers in both sets often used the language criterion
by forming deadjectival nouns, such as „die Hochdeutschen‟ (e.g. Guenter Enns, born in
1928: “und es gab noch eine [einige Deutsche in der Gegend], wir nannten die
Kolonisten, das waren die Hochdeutschen) or „die Plattdeutschen‟ to refer to themselves
(e.g. Abraham Klassen, born in 1893: “das sind Plattdeutsche aus Russland”).
At the same time, Mennonites obviously did not perceive Germans residing in the
Russian Empire as different from Germans living in Germany and felt connected to the
country. Approximately half of the first group of participants never set foot on German
soil ,and most of the other half stayed in Germany only for a brief time, such as several
hours (e.g. J. Driedger, born in 1901) or several months (e.g. W. Andres, born in 1902)
on their way to Canada. Nevertheless, Germany was identified several times as „unsere
alte Heimat‟ (interestingly, by the same J. Driedger and W. Andres). Similar attitudes
were sometimes expressed when the first-set participants talked about the occupation of
their colonies by the German army during World War I. For example, Henry Reimer
(born in 1899) mentioned:
“die deutsche [Soldaten] wurden von uns Mennoniten sehr gut aufgenommen, die
russische Bevölkerung, die meinten wir nahmen sie zu gut auf. Aber nur war das
185
einmal, dass es Deutsche waren, wir sprachen Deutsch alle. Und dann, die
machten uns frei von die Bolschewiken, von die Mörder, die uns so terrorisierten.
… Sie wurden sehr gut aufgenommen, dann wurde ein sehr gutes Essen
vorgestellt. Und dann die Jugend, die sang deutsche Lieder. Wir konnten ja auch
die deutsche Lieder, grade die, die Deutsche konnten, und wenn die Deutschen
anstimmten, sangen wir mit. Und das war ihnen interessant, dass wir all die
Lieder auch konnten”.
The majority of the other participants also mentioned their positive experiences and
highly positive attitude towards the German army occupying their colonies.
However, such strong self-identification with all things German often coincided with
the first group‟s patriotic feelings towards Russia and their self-identification as good
Russian citizens. The extent to which Mennonite identity in the 1920s was torn
between Germany and Russia becomes evident if we compare the above quotation
from Henry Reimer with an account provided by J. Driedger (born in 1901):
“Wir waren gute Bürger des Landes. Wir waren patriotische Bürger. Der
Krieg war gegen Deutschland und wir waren selber Deutsche. Und unsere
Kultur war eigentlich auch sehr deutsch, wir haben vieles von
Deutschland übernommen. Aber trotzdem wir waren gute Bürger und wir
hörten nicht gerne, dass Russland so an den Fronten verlieren tat. Wir
hätten lieber gesehen, wenn Russland gewonnen hat. Das war unser
Vaterland. Ja, dem Kaiser, dem hatten wir so vieles zu verdanken. Wir
waren so aufgebracht.”
186
Similar attitudes regarding World War I were in fact expressed by most participants,
e.g. “wir waren Russländer, wir gingen mit Russland mit” (Gerhard Enns, born in
1885) or “Wir liebten unser Vaterland, wir wollten gar nicht Deutschland”. A similar
view was also expressed by Nikolai Driedger (born in 1893): “at the beginning of the
First World War we were Russian patriots up to the top, da hat keiner von uns
Mennoniten irgendwie Deutschland begrüßt”.
Indeed, Mennonite‟s patriotism towards Russia and, first of all, towards the
Tsar, was mentioned by at least a third of the first set participants. Most Mennonite
families had portraits of the Tsar at home as a sign of solidarity (e.g. “nicht dass wir
ihn [den Zar] sehr verehrten aber es zeigte eine Art Patriotismus”, Nick Franzen,
born in 1907) and grieved when the Tsar was overthrown and eventually executed
(e.g. “Wir liebten das russische Kaiserhaus. Wir ehrten den. Und dann als die
Kaiserfamilie wurde nach Sibirien geschickt und ermordet, ach wir haben alle sehr
getrauert”, Gertruda Reimer, born in 1884).
It must be mentioned, however, that before World War I there were very few
negative feelings towards Mennonites as Germans from the Russian government as well
as from the local population. The situation drastically changed during and after World
War I, when the Mennonites, who enjoyed a privileged status under the German
occupation, began to be associated with the enemy. It was then that the Mennonites
undertook an unsuccessful attempt to avoid being identified as „Germans‟ and tried to
receive official recognition as Mennonites of Dutch origin. An interesting description of
this process is provided by Cornelius Martens (born in 1892):
187
“Die Regierung war gegen uns, feindlich gesonnen schon. Und da im
Parlament wir wollten uns auch noch wehren und wir haben und wollten uns
protekten. Im Parlament haben wir dafür geschoben, wir wären holländische
Deutsche, nicht? Holländer. Sie haben uns das gar nicht angeglaubt. Sie
sagten wir kennen euch, ihr seid nicht Holländer, ihr seid rein Deutsche. Und
wir werden euch das Land auch konfeskieren”.
It is interesting that very few participants of the first set and none from the second
mentioned any tension or negative attitude towards them as Germans from the local
population. In fact, almost all interviewees from the second set and most interviewees of
the first characterized their Russian neighbours very positively and their relationship with
them as very good, e.g. “Die Verhältnisse zwischen uns und die Russen waren gut. Sehr
gut, muss ich sagen” (William Andres, born in 1902). At the same time, absolutely all
participants considered in this study mentioned the hostile attitude of the Soviet
government that was progressively restricting their freedom and making their lives
extremely difficult. Thus, already after the Revolution of 1917, and especially during the
years of the Civil War (1917-1923), when the Mennonites in southern Ukraine were
subjected to most brutal terror by the anarchist bands of Nestor Makhno, their patriotic
feelings towards Russia began to disappear and completely vanished soon thereafter.
Most likely, these negative experiences and the Mennonites‟ resentment of the actions of
the Soviet government were then transferred onto the Russian language in general, and
Mennonites no longer devoted much attention to it in their schools.
Such a change of attitudes towards their country of birth could not, of course,
leave the Mennonites‟ identity unaffected. Since they no longer viewed themselves as
188
loyal Russian citizens, it became more German. Thus, the third-wavers did not show a
comparable range of attitudes towards the German occupying forces to those of the
second-wavers, but often greeted German soldiers as their saviours and liberators, and
unmistakably identified themselves as Germans: e.g. “sie [die deutschen Soldaten] haben
uns gar nicht gestört, sie haben uns viel, viel gegeben weil wir Deutsche waren” (Franz
Koop, born in 1928), or “wir standen an der Straße und haben gesagt: wir sind
Deutsche!” (Katharina Kehler, born in 1932). Furthermore, unlike the first set
participants, who at one point tried to receive official recognition as Dutch to avoid being
persecuted as Germans, the third-wavers wanted be recognized as Volksdeutsche (ethnic
Germans) by the German government and even had to prove their German ancestry to
become German citizens during World War II. The third-wave Mennonite immigrants to
Canada were also viewed as „more German‟ by the second-wavers, as is discussed in
section 6.3.2. To what extent such attitudes and self-identification had other effects the
Mennonites‟ use of their languages in Russia is discussed below.
6.1.4 Language Use Patterns in Russia
As previously mentioned, most Mennonites in Russia (with a few exceptions discussed
below) knew and were regularly using two Germanic varieties: Plautdietsch as the
communal language and High German mostly for official purposes. In addition, during
their stay in Russia, some of them also acquired the Russian language. This section
discusses how, with whom and for what purposes these three languages were used by the
Mennonites in Russia, in what relationship they stood to each other, and also examines
the Mennonites‟ perceptions of them.
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6.1.4.1
Knowledge of Russian
First of all, it must be mentioned that since the first set participants were not asked
directly about their proficiency and usage of Russian, most of the conclusions regarding
their knowledge and usage of it had to be based on other factors, such as whether they
switched to it during the interview, used it to quote someone, or on other information
about their experiences, such as education, employment, or military service. As may be
predicted, such additional information was not always provided by the speakers of the
first set, and it was not always possible to make a decision regarding their knowledge and
use of Russian. Nevertheless, it was felt that more than half of all first-set participants (at
least thirteen out of twenty-one) must have had a good command of the Russian
language, whereas only one person clearly did not.
Knowledge of the Russian language among the second set participants was much
easier to determine as they were directly asked whether they could speak Russian before
World War II. Although such self-reported assessments are not always reliable, they
nevertheless give an approximate indication of the speakers‟ abilities in the language.
Thus, of the twenty-three participants who were old enough to remember their childhood
in Russia, only five had no or very poor knowledge of Russian, thirteen claimed to have
spoken it well or very well, and five claimed to have limited knowledge of it. Also, it is
quite striking that of the twenty-two second set participants who provided this
information, fourteen reported that both of their parents spoke Russian or Ukrainian quite
well, and eight (more than a third of the sample) mentioned only one of their parents
(almost always the father) being proficient in Russian. This imbalance may be explained
190
by the fact that traditionally Mennonite women were more likely than men to stay at
home and work in the household and usually did not have much contact with Russianspeakers even if they were present in the village, e.g.:
“zum Beispiel, meine Mutter. Die hat fast kein Russisch gekannt – die ältere
Frauen, die zu Hause waren. Aber wir пацаны [us boys] wir haben und
gemischt mit die Jungens” ( H. Lehn born in 1924).
Mennonite men usually received a better education than women and often found
positions in Russian cities or large settlements. However, precisely because of their better
education, for the Soviet secret service these Mennonite men were prime targets among
ethnic Germans to be exiled to remote parts of the Soviet Union, where they would have
to reside in Russian settlements. Many such exiled Mennonites were able to visit their
original villages from time to time in the early 1930s, and sometimes did not return to the
place of exile. Thus, some second set participants claimed that their fathers knew Russian
well precisely because of being in exile, e.g. “der Vater konnte [Russisch], ja - er war
überall in Verbannung gewesen” (E. Toews, born in 1923).
Further, it has also been found that in addition to some older Mennonite women
who usually stayed in the household and did not communicate much with the local Slavic
population, it was not uncommon to know very little or no Russian for those Mennonites
who lived in distant and isolated parts of their colonies where no Russian speakers lived.
An example of such area would be the southern villages of the Molotschna colony:
“unsere Dörfer waren die höchst am Norden gleich überm Fluss, das waren
beim Russen da. Die weiter, welche weiter nach dem Süden wohnten, die
191
konnten sehr wenig Russisch, auch die Kinder nicht.” (G. Enns from set
two)
Very interesting is the Mennonites‟ perception of the Russian variety some of them
spoke. While there is very little doubt that in their schools Mennonites learned the
standardized literary Russian, they usually spoke a regionally coloured variety showing a
strong influence of the Ukrainian language outside of the school limits. The first
indication of this was given by the first set participant Nikolai Dridger (born in 1893),
who claimed that after finishing school he worked in a Russian bank, which helped him
learn “richtig Russisch, nicht Ukrainisch.”24 Further evidence for this provide the
borrowings, which the interviewees used during the interviews. Many of these words are
not standard Russian lexical items, e.g. “яйко” (яйцо, egg) , “ясла” (ясли, nursery),
“церква” (церковь, church), “могылы” (могилы, graves), “иди до дому” (иди домой,
go home). It is interesting that the speakers were usually aware that the variety of Russian
they spoke had a regional colouring, as is evident, for example, from the following
statement by A. Loewen (born in 1924): “wir sprachen was immer die Sprache,
Ukrainisch oder Russisch war, vielleicht auch viel durcheinander, das weiss ich nicht,
aber das haben wir gesprochen“. Another participant from the second set identified the
variety of Russian they spoke with the local population as “Khokholsch, … nicht richtig
Russisch und nicht richtig Ukrainisch”25 and remembers that their Ukrainian teacher
forbade them to use the Ukrainian words they picked up on the streets. At the same time,
most second-set participants reflected very positively on Russian as a language.
24
It is interesting that Ukrainian was usually perceived by Mennonites to be an inferior and less prestigious
language than Russian.
25
As previously mentioned, this name derives from „хохол‟ a derogatory Russian word for „a Ukrainian‟.
The speaker, however, did not seem to give this word any negative meaning and specified that this was how
they referred to the language they spoke with the local Slavic population.
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6.1.4.2
Usage of Russian
As already mentioned in the previous section and Chapter 3, Mennonites usually used
their knowledge of the Russian language to communicate with the local Slavic
population, as well as at the places of work in the Russian cities or in large settlements
for some Mennonites. However, it would be incorrect to think that this was the only
function the Russian language fulfilled in the Mennonite colonies.
Thus, in addition to communicating with the Russian workers, it was very typical
for the more educated participants from the first set to be familiar with and appreciate
works of Russian literature, some of which they usually had at home. Further, Russianlanguage newspapers (e.g. Московские Ведомости) were gaining popularity and
reportedly were read by many Mennonites before the Revolution. It is known that before
World War I there was even a serious discussion among Mennonites about the need for a
Russian-language newspaper (personal correspondence with Dr. James Urry).
The situation with Russian-language reading materials among the second set
participants was somewhat different. Thus, while the more educated interviewees usually
also knew and treasured masterpieces of Russian literature, their attitude towards
Russian-language newspapers was very skeptical, if not negative. For example, while
almost every third-wave immigrant considered in this study had to subscribe to „Правда‟,
the official newspaper of the communist party, and although more Russian-language
reading materials were available at the small local communist libraries called „красный
уголок‟ (red corner), only one participant remembers reading Russian newspapers. The
rest of the interviewees remember having no interest in them whatsoever because of the
strict censorship and the communist propaganda contained in them. Ironically,
193
Mennonites did use the local newspapers for all kinds of purposes other than reading: to
obtain slips of paper for writing or drawing (the unused white borders), to start a fire, or
to make roll-up cigarettes.
In addition to communicating in Russian with the local Russian speakers, the
second set participants were exposed to the Russian language in at least three ways the
first set participants were not: first of all, Russian was the only language of the cinema,
which was eagerly attended by the Mennonite children. In fact, as many as sixteen of the
second set participants remember frequently seeing Russian movies. Further, most of the
second set participants also had a loudspeaker installed in one of the rooms, which
transmitted the local Russian-language radio station. Although their attitude toward it was
somewhat similar to that toward the communist newspapers, most participants remember
listening to the news or to music transmitted over the radio. Finally, most of the thirdwave immigrants considered in this study were forced to join the local collective farms
administrated by Russian-speakers. Consequently, all communication with the
management as well as the paperwork had to be conducted in the Russian language.
To summarize, it can be seen that in the 1930s, despite the significant change in
the Mennonites‟ attitude to the Russian state, which in turn had drastically decreased their
enthusiasm about learning the Russian language, Russian was fulfilling a much larger
number of functions and was used in more ways by the Mennonites in the 1930s than by
the second wave immigrants during their time in Russia.
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6.1.4.3
Language(s) of Early Childhood
When trying to determine the first language(s) of the first set participants, I faced very
similar difficulties to those described in section 6.1.4.1. As none of the first set
participants happened to mention directly what languages they spoke at home, the only
conclusion that could be drawn based on other information provided by the first set
interviewees is that the overwhelming majority of the group was very comfortable using
Plautdietsch. Nevertheless, despite of this the first language(s) of the second-wave
immigrants considered in this study could not be determined with any degree of certainty.
Therefore, only the data collected from the second set of interviews is discussed in this
section. The summary of it is presented in Table 6-3:
Language(s) of
early childhood:
# of participants
(out of 24):
Plautdietsch
15
Plautdietsch
& Russian
2
High German
& Plautdietsch
3
High
German
4
Table 6-3: the first language(s) of the second set participants
As the table shows, the majority of the interviewees in the second set grew up speaking
Plautdietsch with their families. For almost all of these speakers, Plautdietsch was also
the default language to be used in their village, especially if there were no or few
Russian-speaking residents. The only two exceptions to this were a speaker who was born
in a Plautdietsch-speaking family in the predominantly High German-speaking village of
Gnadenfeld (Molotschna), and ta speaker in whose native village of Ladekopp
(Molotschna), Russian and Ukrainian were also used alongside Plautdietsch: “es wurde
alles durcheinander gesprochen”.
Further, the two participants who spoke Plautdietsch and Russian since early
childhood deserve special attention and present rather unusual cases among Mennonites.
The first of them was born from a mixed marriage and spoke Plautdietsch with one parent
195
and only Russian with the other. Nearly simultaneous acquisition of Plautdietsch and
Russian of the second participant in this category was necessitated by his father‟s exile to
Siberia, where only Russian-speakers were around. This case is rather unusual because
the families of exiled Mennonites often stayed in the colonies and did not join the exiled
parent. This speaker, however, was taken to Siberia as a baby and lived there for nine
years. He remembers that prior to his family‟s return from exile, his parents spoke
Plautdietsch to him and his siblings and he usually answered in Russian. The speaker
mentioned certain difficulties among the Mennonite children upon his return to the
Mennonite colonies, because of his poor knowledge of both Germanic varieties
Mennonites used.
Further, three speakers in the sample grew up speaking both High German and
Plautdietsch. Two of them (H. Braun, born in 1928, and P. Bergen, born in 1924) lived in
predominantly Plautdietsch-speaking villages and usually spoke Plautdietsch outside of
the home. It is quite interesting that in both cases the switch to High German in the
respondents‟ families happened because their mothers came from the more educated
Mennonite families (usually those of teachers or church elders) who had already adopted
High German as their communal language. The third participant in this category claims to
have always spoken both languages to the parents.
Finally, four participants in the sample grew up speaking only High German. Two
of them were born in partially non-Mennonite German families, and one or both of their
parents spoke only High German. Both of these speakers lived among the Mennonites
from very early childhood, both acquired knowledge of Plautdietsch at a later stage, both
married Mennonites, and linguistically were felt not to be any different from the other
196
participants. Hence, the two interviewees were not excluded from the sample. The other
two participants spoke only High German at home and mentioned that their mothers came
from educated Mennonite families and were both teachers.
6.1.4.4
High German among Plautdietsch-speakers
As previously mentioned, most of the first set participants seemed to be fluent in
Plautdietsch and the majority of the second set interviewees grew up with it as at their
first language. At the same time, the first set interviewees were proficient enough in High
German to choose it as the language of the interview (they were offered to a choice
between English, Plautdietsch, and High German more than forty years after their arrival
in Canada). Unlike the interviewees of the first set, the second set participants were not
given such a language choice, but they felt comfortable enough to converse with the
interviewer in High German and to conduct the interview in this language after also
having stayed in Canada for more than forty years. This section looks in detail at the
following three questions: 1) where and how the Plautdietsch-speaking Mennonites
acquired their knowledge of High German, and when they used it; 2) what their
perception of High German and High-German speaking Mennonites was; and 3) how
both languages were used by the Mennonites and what functions they fulfilled in the
Mennonite communities.
First of all, it must be mentioned that the acquisition of High German by the
Plautdietsch-speaking Mennonite majority is usually considered to have taken place in
Mennonite schools. Indeed, most of the second set participants inevitably gave this
answer when asked where they learned High German. Yet a closer look at the interviews
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reveals interesting discrepancies between this answer and some other information the
interviewees provided. For example, one participant born in 1931 started his schooling in
1938 with Russian as the only language of instruction and initially claimed to have
started to learn High German in school only under the German occupation:
[Interviewer]: Und wo haben Sie das Hochdeutsche gelernt?
[Johann Gossen]: in der Schule.
[Interviewer]: Sie gingen noch in die deutsche Schule?
[Johann Gossen]: Während der deutschen Zeit, einundvierzig bis dreiundvierzig.
However, later in the interview, when the speaker mentioned completing grades four and
five under the German occupation, when High German was the only language of
instruction, he was asked how he could do it without knowing the language. Then Mr.
Gossen changed his opinion: “na, höchstwahrscheinlich haben wir auch schon
Hochdeutsch gesprochen, weil unsere Vorfahren kommen ja von Holland, dann sind sie
in Ostpreußen gewesen”. Further, in the interview Mr. Gossen also mentioned that
German soldiers were stationed in their village and that he remembered talking to them in
High German since they did not understand Plautdietsch:
[Interviewer]: Und haben Sie die deutschen Soldaten angesprochen?
[Johann Gossen]: Oh ja, die sind bei uns einquartiert gewesen.
[Interviewer]: Und konnten die auch Plattdeutsch verstehen?
[Johann Gossen]: na, so wie ich sage, höchstwahrscheinlich haben wir auch
Hochdeutsch gesprochen.
A very similar discrepancy was shown by another second set participant who initially
claimed to have spoken only Plautdietsch. Born in 1933, this interviewee did not attended
school until the German occupation during World War II, and consequently should not
have had any knowledge of High German before 1941. Yet the same participant
remembered speaking High German with German soldiers when they were stationed in
their village. Similarly, another participant, who was born in 1934 and also did not start
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his education in High German until 1941, also claimed that they understood High
German already as children.
The existence of these discrepancies could be attributed to the not always reliable
self-evaluation of one‟s language knowledge, if not for the evidence provided by those
Mennonites in the sample who did not speak any Plautdietsch. There were two
participants who were both born in High German-speaking families but lived in
Plautdietsch-speaking villages. One of them was only seven years old when her family
left the USSR and did not have many memories about her life in Russia, yet she was
positive that neither she nor her siblings spoke any Plautdietsch as children. She
mentioned that most likely the other children spoke Plautdietsch to them but they
answered in High German. Although this statement is only an assumption, it nevertheless
shows that the speaker considered it reasonable that the Plautdietsch-speaking Mennonite
children had receptive abilities in High German. The other participant who also lived
among Plautdietsch speakers but did not know any Plautdietsch as a child was born in
1926 and clearly remembered that the other Mennonite children in Russia always spoke
High German to her and her siblings. Based on this evidence, the conclusion can be
drawn that at least a part of the Plautdietsch speakers (and maybe even a significant part)
had some abilities in High German before they started to attend German school. But how
and where would these speakers acquire their knowledge of High German before learning
it at school? Below I will present and discuss five ways other than school in which
Mennonite children in the 1930s were exposed to High German.
The first, and possibly one of the earliest ways in which Mennonite children in
Russia started to acquire High German was reading. Plautdietsch was a spoken language
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at the time and none of the second set participants ever considered using it for writing: all
personal communication as well as much reading and writing in Russia was done entirely
in High German (which included literature, poetry, and various other types of written
texts).
Although some literature was written in Plautdietsch, consisting mostly of plays
and short stories, was also by such authors as J. H. Janzen (1878-1950) or A. Dyck
(1889-1970), this did not happen until the 1940s in Canada. Consequently, none of the
second set participants ever considered using Plautdietsch for writing and took it rather as
a form of entertainment, since, as many of them stated “Plattdeutsch war eine Sprache,
die man sprach und nicht schrieb. … Einer schreibt so, der andere schreibt so, da ist
nichts einheitliches in Plattdeutsch” (J. Driedger, born in 1924) or “[schreiben auf]
Plattdeutsch geht ja fast nicht, da gibts da keine Grammatik” (H. Wiens, born in 1938).
Therefore, all personal correspondence with their relatives in North America as
well as in the other Mennonite colonies was in High German. The letters were probably
read, re-read, and discussed in the families. This is evident from the fact that many
participants remember these letters and claim that their parents wrote “in der gotischen
Sprache”, undoubtedly referring to one of the several old handwritten German scripts
(Kurrentschrift, Sütterling, or die deutsche Volksschrift) which differs substantially from
the handwritten script officially used for writing since 1941. Further, besides the written
correspondence with their relatives, which must have been rather slow from the late
1920s because of increasing censorship, at least eight native Plautdietsch speakers in the
second set said that they had access to German-language print materials. Although, most
Mennonite children obviously learned to read after they started school, several
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Plautdietsch speakers remember their parents reading German books to them as children.
In fact, reading German books to Mennonite children was mentioned by one participant
as the reason why he thinks Plautdietsch speakers also know High German:
“Höchstwahrscheinlich haben wir auch Hochdeutsch gesprochen, weil wir gelesen
haben, wenigstens unsere Eltern.” (J. Gossen from set two).
Further, while none of the second set participants mentioned ever seeing any
German-language newspaper before World War II, it was mentioned several times that
most of the old German books they had at home had been ordered from Germany because
“da war reger Verkehr [mit Deutschland] vor dem Kommunismus”. Although the first set
participants were not asked about their reading materials in German, some of them
mentioned having many German-language newspapers and magazines in Russia.
Therefore, it can be concluded that although the quantity of German reading materials
had declined significantly, reading in High German was still common among the
Mennonites in Russia in the late 1920s and 1930s, and was one of the ways in which
Mennonite youth was exposed to it.
Obviously, after learning how to write in High German, the Mennonites would
also use this language to write letters themselves. Writing letters in High German is far
more important than it may seem at the first glance because there were hardly any
Mennonite families in the second group who were not separated or did not lose track of
some of their family members or extended relatives during World War II. Most of them
found each other again through the Red Cross organization, with the help of the
Mennonite Central Committee, or through Mennonite newspapers. Despite the fact that
some participants mentioned receiving letters from their relatives in the USSR in the
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Russian language several decades after World War II, this was usually an exception and
almost all written correspondence among Mennonites was always conducted in High
German.
Another domain which has been traditionally reserved for High German among
Mennonites is their religion. Although this has changed today (as discussed in section
6.3.3 below), prior to their emigration to Canada and for several decades thereafter, High
German was the variety exclusively used in the religious domain. However, all
Mennonite churches were abolished in the Soviet Union in the 1920s as a result of the
Soviet anti-religion campaign and of the ruthless physical elimination of those who
protested against it. Therefore, only a few second set participants remember attending
church services, and an even smaller number had a copy of the German Bible at home.
Despite of this, many participants were taught how to pray by their parents, and,
especially in the closed villages, by their kindergarten and school teachers. Needless to
say, the only language of prayer was High German. Further, although open religious
celebrations were strongly discouraged and children were subjected to severe antireligious propaganda at school, several participants remember their families retelling
stories from the Bible during family gatherings on such days. Similarly to praying,
talking about religion, and especially interpreting the Bible, the corner stone of
Mennonite beliefs, was always done only in High German.
Thirdly, it was discovered that singing was an extremely popular activity among
Mennonites. As already indicated by the first set participant Henry Reimer in section
6.1.3, Mennonites knew and eagerly sang many German folksongs. This statement was
also supported by many second set participants, who also claimed to have sung these
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songs regularly and to have have impressed the German soldiers as well as visitors from
Germany with their knowledge of them. As stated by several participants, all the German
songs Mennonites sang were only in High German, although Russian songs had also
already entered the repertoire for some respondents in the 1920s and 1930s.
Fourthly, although in the late 1930s, High German was replaced by Russian as the
language of Mennonite education and the religious domain altogether was reduced to a
minimum and practically driven underground, the language was still used in situations of
an official character. Thus, it was typical for Mennonites to speak Plautdietsch among
themselves, for example, on the way to an official meeting (the village council, or
ameeting with a former teacher or church minister), but then to switch entirely to High
German during the event, and then back to Plautdietsch afterwards. For example, when
comparing the functions of Plautdietsch to those of High German, one participant
mentioned: “Plattdeutsch ist so unter sich, zu Hause, wenn es irgendetwas offizielles war,
war das nur Hochdeutsch”. This perception of Plautdietsch as the informal language was
very typical to all interviewees in the second set, who often expressed very similar views,
e.g.: “die plattdeutsche Sprache, das war so nebenbei, das sprichst du zu Hause” (H.
Lehn, born in 1926).
Further, as my data shows the knowledge of High German by all Mennonites born
in Russia was not only nothing special, but was assumed and expected. Thus, although
there were some Mennonites in the sample who had little or no knowledge of
Plautdietsch, many second set participants mentioned that absolutely all Mennonites in
Russia knew High German: “alle, alle, alle konnten Hochdeutsch sprechen” (H. Willems,
born in 1938) or “Es konnten alle Hochdeutsch. Ich mein‟, es war kein Problem für sie
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von Plattdeutsch auf Hochdeutsch und von Hochdeutsch auf Plattdeutsch” (P. Pauls, born
in 1931). Further, it is interesting that switching to High German when speaking with
someone who did not know Plautdietsch or was not very comfortable in it also seems to
be have been expected and accepted by Plautdietsch speakers without question or
negative feelings.
Fifthly, and lastly, it was found that in many Plautdietsch-speaking Mennonite
villages there were some people who spoke only High German and with whom
consequently, Plautdietsch speakers would have to switch to High German. Often, these
were isolated families of ethnic Germans of Lutheran or Catholic denominations, or a
number of Jewish families, who were also reported to speak High German to the
Mennonites. Also, in addition to some entirely High German-speaking Mennonite
villages such as Gnadenfeld in the Molotschna, in many other villages there were
Mennonite families who used High German for informal communication. Usually these
High German speakers came from more educated families of teachers, bankers,
accountants, pharmacists, former church ministers, etc. An interesting account was
provided was provided by H. Rempel (born in 1926), resident of Ladekopp (Molotschna),
when he was asked whether there were High German-speaking Mennonites in his village:
“da waren etliche, zum Beispiel diese Familie. Er war ein конторщик [office
employee], er hat im Büro gearbeitet und sie war Lehrerin. Und die waren
von die, ein bisschen bessere Klasse. Nicht das sie reich waren, aber sie
haben sich diese Sprache gleich als Hochdeutsch angenommen. Und sie
sprachen nicht Plattdeutsch, überhaupt nicht. Und da waren auch welche die,
der Apotheker zum Beispiel, solche Leute sprachen dann nur Hochdeutsch.”
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The observation that Mennonites with better education often insisted on using only High
German in their families was frequently confirmed by many second set interviewees. For
example:
“Ich hatte auch eine, eine Kusine, no, eine Tante die, die waren beide Lehrer
gewesen und die sprachen nur Hochdeutsch mit ihren Kindern. Plattdeutsch
konnten die auch, aber die erste Sprache war Hochdeutsch”. (A. Niebuhr, born
in 1933)
In addition, it has been found that the mothers of four out of seven second set
participants, who spoke High German in their families, were teachers. It is quite
interesting that for the participants considered in this study, the switch to High German in
the family was usually initiated by women. When talking about why their mothers spoke
High German, many participants reported the same pattern: the parents would speak
Plautdietsch among themselves but would use only High German with the children. An
interesting account of the switch in his village was provided by Peter Pauls (born in
1931):
“Ich glaube, in Chortitza-Rosental mein Jahrgang hat Hochdeutsch
gesprochen. Mit den Eltern wurde Hochdeutsch gesprochen, unter sich haben
die Eltern und ihre Freunde und so weit Bekannte haben Plattdeutsch
gesprochen. Deutsch und Plattdeutsch, es kommt darauf an, wie alt du bist.”
While the switch to High German as the communal language in other Mennonite villages
was certainly not as common as the one reported above for Chortitza-Rosental, my data
demonstrate that a number of the interviewees parents‟ families had already switched to
High German, which means that the switch was already underway in the first two decades
205
of the twentieth century. Thus, while some interviewees were the first generation of
Mennonites whose parents brought them up with High German as the communal
language, one of the interviewees (E. Dridger, born in 1926) mentioned that already her
Plautdietsch-speaking grandparents used only High German when speaking to her
mother. This pattern was also found to be very typical among the families of the second
and third wave Mennonite immigrants in Canada.
The switch to High German as the family language seems to have been a
conscious attempt on the part of some Mennonite parents to teach their children a more
prestigious variety (“eine richtige Sprache”), as is evident, for example, from such
statements as “Die Eltern wollten doch wohl immer nur Hochdeutsch“ (A. Niebuhr, born
in 1933, when talking about why some Mennonite families spoke High German), or
“wenn die Kinder schon Deutsch lernen sollen, dann soll es alles Hochdeutsch sein“ (H.
Lehn, born in 1926). Most likely, such pressure from the parents to teach their children
High German was caused by the higher prestige of High German, which is often viewed
by Mennonites as a more practical language, e.g. : “… ich denke das ist so viel
praktischer [referring to some Mennonites speaking High German to their children], weil
alles wurde in Hochdeutsch geschrieben und getan“ (H. Rempel, born in 1926).
Now let us take a look at the relationship in which High German and Plautdietsch
stood to each other in the Mennonite colonies in Russia. First of all, there is much
evidence that before a number of Mennonite families began switching to High German as
the communal language, Mennonites‟ linguistic situation in Russia can clearly be
characterized as stable bilingualism with diglossia. Thus, we see the fulfillment of all
three conditions of stable bilingualism outlined by Louden (1994, pp. 74-75):
206
1) Both languages are acquired sufficiently early and completely (i.e. in childhood)
such that individual speakers are reasonably fluent in both;
2) Both languages are appropriate in substantial and productive domains of use, such
as there is a functional need for both languages in the daily lives of speakers;
3) Both languages enjoy more or less equivalent (though not necessarily equal)
prestige among speakers.
Indeed, before the beginning of the twentieth century, all Mennonites in Russia grew up
with both Plautdietsch and High German, which they acquired in their childhood, and
both languages played a vital role in their everyday lives. It may seem that the third
condition is not fulfilled, because, as has been shown above, High German had
significantly higher prestige than Plautdietsch. Yet it should not be forgotten that both
Plautdietsch and High German were the Mennonites‟ insider-varieties, which gave both
languages a roughly similar status compared to Russian. Despite the significant degree of
patriotism shown before the Revolution of 1917, among other ways, in learning the
language, Russian was still not used by the Mennonites for informal communication and
was largely considered an outsiders‟ variety.
Similarly, until a number of Mennonite native speakers of High German appeared in
their colonies, the socio-linguistic arrangement of Mennonites in Russia was also clearly
diglossic. First of all, let me summarize and repeat here the six crucial conditions of
diglossia presented in section 2.2.1:
1) Diglossia presupposes theexistence of two varieties in the same community: a
superposed variety (H) usually reserved for written and more official purposes and a
vernacular variety (L).
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2) There has to be a functional specialization of H and L – a set of situations in which
only one of the varieties is appropriate. Neither H nor L can be used in the domains
reserved for the other.
3) The H variety must have greater prestige and superiority over L, a greater literary
heritage and a strong tradition of formal grammatical study and standardization.
4) The choice of H or L is determined entirely by the social context and is not a marker
of social identity of a speaker.
5) There is no prestigious group of native H-speakers and children have no opportunity to
acquire H as their native variety.
6) The functional distribution between the two varieties protects L against H, which is
more likely to be displaced by L than the other way round.
As has been shown above, the first three conditions have been fulfilled in the Mennonite
communities ever since they accepted High German and the language of religion and
official matters in Prussia at the end of the eighteenth century. Although conditions four,
five, and six were also initially fulfilled, they were not necessarily true for some speakers
born in the twentieth century. Thus, as has been demonstrated above, in the twentieth
century in many villages there were some Mennonites who used High German as the
communal language. Because of their better education and usually more prestigious jobs,
these Mennonites also were perceived by the Plautdietsch speakers to have a higher social
standing. Further, as I have shown, because of the greater prestige of High German, many
Mennonite parents made a special effort to raise their children with High German as their
native language. Consequently, it can be assumed that the number of native High German
speakers among Mennonites was increasing, which could eventually have put
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Plautdietsch at risk had the Mennonite colonies not been depopulated during World War
II. Therefore, it can be concluded that although the initial linguistic arrangement of the
Mennonites in Russia could be characterized as stable bilingualism with diglossia, this
situation was slowly changing as High German was gaining more prestige and more and
more Mennonite families were using it for informal communication.
6.1.4.5
Summary
This section has examined the knowledge, acquisition, and the usage patterns of Russian,
Plautdietsch, and High German by the Mennonites in Russia before they left their
colonies in 1943. It has been established that the majority of the participants in both sets
most likely had a good command of the Russian language. While more than half of the
second set participants reported that their parents could speak Russian well or very well,
it was noticed that interviewees‟ fathers were more likely to have good knowledge of
Russian than their mothers. This may be explained by the men‟s better education and job
placements outside of the Mennonite villages, as well as by the fact that men were more
likely than women to be exiled to remote parts of the USSR, where they usually had to
reside and work among Russian speakers. Further, it has been pointed out by several
interviewees that in the 1930s, it was not uncommon for older Mennonite women, who
mostly worked around their households, as well as for Mennonites living in remote parts
of their colonies not to know much Russian. In this respect, my results contradict the
information provided by other researchers, e.g. Moelleken (1992), who stated that all
third-wave Mennonite immigrants were fluent in Russian (p. 80).
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Further, my data have suggested that because of the high prestige associated with
the High German language, individual Mennonite families were increasingly accepting it
as the communal language. Thus, although the majority of the interviewees in the second
set spoke Plautdietsch as the first language, more than a quarter of all participants used
High German (often alongside Plautdietsch) for ordinary conversation in their families,
which was traditionally fulfilled by Plautdietsch. Finally, it has been shown that
Plautdietsch-speaking Mennonites most likely acquired High German at a relatively early
age as they were exposed to it in a number of ways, which included being read to by their
parents, praying, singing religious or folk-songs, reading and writing (at a later age),
communication with other Mennonites in official settings, with Mennonites of higher
social status, as well as with some non-Mennonites. Plautdietsch, on the other hand, was
found to fulfill a very limited number of functions, namely informal communication with
the insiders. A summary of functions fulfilled by Russian, Plautdietsch, and High German
among Mennonites in Russia before World War II is presented in the following table:
PD
Oral communication with insiders +
(informal context)
Oral communication with
insiders (formal context)
Communication with outsiders
Reading/writing
Praying
Singing (religious)
Singing (non-religious)
Radio (2nd set participants only)
Cinema (2nd set participants only)
-
High German
Russian
+
-
+
-
+ (e.g. other ethnic
Germans, Jewish families)
+
+
+
+
-
+
+ (to a lesser degree)
+ (to a lesser degree)
+
+
Table 6-4: Domains of language use among Mennonites in Russia before WWII
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6.2
On the Way to Canada
An interesting difference between the two groups of Mennonites considered in this
project concerns the amount of time they spent in Germany. For the majority of the
second wave immigrants, the process of immigration to Canada usually did not involve a
stay in Germany, whereas all of the third wave immigrants spent between three and six
years there. For example, those first set participants who left Russia between 1924 and
1927 (fourteen out of eighteen participants who provided this information) usually went
from Moscow to Riga, and then through Belgium or England to Quebec or the Maritime
provinces of Canada. The only exception to this was one participant who also came to
Riga but had to travel to Hamburg in an attempt to receive his medical approval. At the
same time, a relatively short stay in Germany was typical for those second wavers who
left the USSR between 1927 and 1930. There were four such participants in the first
interview set, all of who spent several months in Hammerstein (today‟s Czarne) before
going to Canada.
On the other hand all third-wave immigrants considered in this study lived in the
territory occupied by Germany after the summer of 1941 and resided on the territory of
present-day Germany from the end of 1944. The experiences of the third-wavers in
Germany were very different and ranged from those who felt completely at home there
(e.g. “die Bauern wollten mich sogar adoptieren. Ich habe mich wie zu Hause gefühlt”, L.
Winter) to those who felt much less comfortable, for example: “Ich persönlich hatte das
Gefühl wir waren Russen zu denen. … Zu Hause haben wir uns dort nicht gefühlt” (H.
Wiens) or “Wir haben da mit die Deutschen gearbeitet aber keine Gemeinschaft und
keine Gemeinde. Und keine Freunde waren da”. Interestingly, several participants
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mentioned that they spoke High German differently from the Germans in Germany (e.g.
“unser Deutsch war den komisch”), and one interviewee mentioned being laughed at
because of it by her peers at school.
Further, it must be mentioned that all third-wave immigrants in the sample were
very afraid of being repatriated (i.e. deported back to the Soviet Union), and all of them
went through very stressful times and had to hide from Soviet officials looking for them
and their families. Being repatriated was one of the reasons why many participants used
the first opportunity to leave Germany and immigrate to Paraguay. Thus, a total of ten
participants went there between 1947 and 1948.
The life-style in Paraguay, according to these interviewees, was very similar to
that in pre-revolutionary Russia, with the exception that Russian was no longer needed or
used by the Mennonites. All participants lived in closed Mennonite villages, went to
Mennonite schools with High German as the only language of instruction, attended
church services also conducted only in High German, and subscribed to the Germanlanguage Mennonite newspapers „Der Bote‟ and „Die Rundschau‟. Considering that there
was very little contact with the Spanish-speaking population, the linguistic situation in
Paraguay could be considered as diglossia with stable bilingualism, although some
participants also reported an attempt by some Mennonites to use High German as the
communal language, for it was held in an extremely high regard, as can be concluded
from the following example:
“Wie wir noch in Paraguay in die geschlossene Dörfer gewohnt haben, wenn da
mal etliche Familien mit ihren Kindern Deutsch gesprochen haben, [dann haben
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die anderen gesagt]: oh, der ist so eingebildet, der spricht mit die Kindern
Hochdeutsch!” (H. Wiens)
However, despite full religious freedom, the economic conditions in South America were
less than favourable and those Mennonites who had relatives in Canada used this
opportunity to emigrate. Thus, all second set participants who left Germany for Paraguay
came to Canada between 1954 and 1967.
The Mennonites who stayed in Germany usually received an opportunity to
immigrate to Canada if they had living relatives there or if they signed a contract to come
to Canada as farm-workers or lumbermen. Thus, all remaining second set participants
immigrated to Canada between 1947 and 1950.
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6.3
In Canada
6.3.1 Language Use among the Second Wavers
When the second wave immigrants arrived in Canada, many of them went through
Ontario to Manitoba or Saskatchewan, where they usually had relatives who had come to
Canada during the first migration wave. While many of the newcomers stayed in the
prairies, some of them eventually moved to Ontario and settled together with other
second wave Mennonite immigrants. Thus, more than half of the first set interviewees
spent some time in Manitoba and Saskatchewan before moving to Ontario, whereas the
rest settled there soon after their arrival. It is interesting that four of the first set
participants, who were among the first to come to Ontario, were initially hosted by the
Pennsylvania Mennonites in Waterloo. Yet because of the linguistic and cultural
differences, the second wavers soon formed their own congregations and settled with the
other immigrants from Russia.
It is interesting that although the second wave immigrants usually settled in Englishspeaking areas, many of them characterized themselves as “eine geschlossene Gruppe”
and mentioned the “Gruppengefühl” they had:
“wir aus Russland Geflüchtete, wir nannten uns erst die Flüchtlingsgemeinde
und wir gehörten zusammen. Die Lebenserfahrungen - alle gleiche, wenn auch
von Altkolonie oder Molotschna oder Sibirien, wir fanden uns hier zusammen
und hatten das Gefühl wir müssten zusammen halten“ (Jacob Janzen, born in
1895).
Consequently, for several decades after the arrival of the second wavers in Canada, there
usually was little contact with English speakers, who were often referred to as „die
214
Englischen‟ or „die Engländer‟. The extent to which contact with non-Mennonites was
discouraged is evident from the deep disappointment still felt by some participants at the
time of the interview about “Verenglischung” of most community members,
“Verwischung der Grenzen zwischen uns und und den Engländern”, or marrying nonMennonites: “Mixed marriages sind kein Wunder mehr!” The result of these factors was
usually perceived to be quite severe: “we are losing our identity!” Considering that such
attitudes still existed among the second wave immigrants close to half a century after
their immigration, one can only imagine how negative the original reaction to contact
with English speakers was.
In terms of language use, the initial situation of the second wave immigrants in
Ontario must have been very similar to that in Russia, with two major differences. Firstly,
while Plautdietsch was most likely used by the majority as the language of the home,
High German was still fostered in the community, and was the only language of the
church, written communication, and official business. However, although knowledge of it
was usually encouraged by parents, who almost without exception sent their children to a
Saturday or Sunday school to learn High German, the main language of regular school for
Mennonite children was now English. Secondly, Russian was now not used at all, as it
was no longer seen by most Mennonites to be „their language‟. Therefore, Mennonites no
longer wanted to be identified as Russians or to be associated with Russia:
“die [Kanadier] wollten uns immer Russen nennen. Und so schlecht ich auch
Englisch konnte, ich hab immer gesagt I am not a Russian, I am a German. Hier
nannte ich mich German, nicht? In Russland nannten wir uns Holländer. Richtig
gesagt sind wir holländischer Herkunft. Aber hier habe ich immer gesagt I am a
German, nicht? Denn ich war proud of Germany.” (William Andres, born in
1902).
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Having come to a country with a language they did not know, and no longer feeling
connected to Russia, Mennonite immigrants felt very close to other German speakers.
Thus, Maria Toews (born in 1897) remembers that her father, who did not know much
English, always looked for German names on the store signs (assuming that it would
mean that they also spoke High German) to do his shopping. Furthermore, it is interesting
that in the early years Mennonites usually eagerly identified themselves with the German
nation and the country of Germany, but were quite hesitant to do the same with Canada:
[Interviewer]: Nun in Kanada, wie lange dauerte das bis die Immigranten Kanadier
wurden?
[N. Franzen]:
Das dauerte eigentlich ziemlich lang. Wir geben uns vor dass wir
deutsches Blut in uns haben. Aber ob das ist, weiss ich nicht. … Ich
sage immer unser Kultur ist deutsch, ich habe auch durch die Zeit
des Krieges hindurch immer gesagt wenn sie mich fragten und ich
musste unterschreiben, what nationality? Also damals meinte mal,
was für ein Volk du bist. Da schrieb [ich] immer German. Unsere
Leute waren eigentlich holländisch. Mir gefällt das nicht, ich kenn
so wenig von Holländern. Ich sage, Plattdeutsch ist nicht Holländ.
Also ja, unser Kultur unser Sprache und ich weiss, mein Grossvater
ist in Deutschland geboren, ich hab immer in mir German. Aber wir
sind auch deutsche Patrioten. Ich weiss zum Beispiel in ersten
Jahren wir verschrieben uns viel von Deutschland: Stahlwaren,
Tischbesteche, Gabel, Messer und so was. Das ärgerte unsere
englische Nachbarn.
In addition, for many second wave immigrants it was very typical to stay in their own
community and, as a result, not to know much English. Thus, at least seven participants
of the first set reported that they did not learn any English for many years in Canada
216
because they had too little contact with English speakers. Several participants also
reported that they were still not fluent in English at the time of the interview. Considering
the Mennonites‟ above-mentioned self-identification as Germans and their usually poor
abilities in English, it is understandable that during World War II they became associated
with the enemy, and some of them remember threats and from confrontation with the
local Canadian population on the streets.
Surprising, however, is the fact that throughout World War II and for some years
thereafter High German remained the only language of the Mennonite church despite
some reported attempts from the Canadian government to force Mennonites to replace it
with English. In fact, Jacob Janzen, the first minister at the Leamington Mennonite
Church, said that “if the government says you have to preach in English, you might as
well lock the churches.” Another first set participant from the same congregation, Nikolai
Dridger, also mentioned that it would have been impossible to hold church services in
English at the time because “keiner konnte Englisch predigen und keiner konnte Englisch
verstehen”.
In fact, the (High) German language was perceived to play such a crucial role in
keeping the Mennonites together as a group that the Mennonite church elders in the
1930s insisted that Mennonites switch to High German in their families to bring their
children up in it:
[Interviewer]: Wie ist es mit der Sprache, war das schon in den dreißiger vierziger
Jahren ein Problem oder gab es die Frage Englisch-Deutsch?
[N. Franzen]: Eigentlich kam das später auf. … Man sah ja, wie es so mit der Sprache
gehen würde schon Anfang dreißiger Jahre. Da sprachen die
Sonntagschullehrer, wir sollten die Leute encouragen, beeinflussen, in den
Familien Hochdeutsch zu sprechen. Denn wir werden auch nicht länger
217
Plattdeutsch, Hochdeutsch und Englisch sprechen. English müssten sie in
der Schule lernen. Hochdeutsch wollen wir im Gottesdienst und in der
Sonntagschule. Und danach Plattdeutsch. Das wird nicht gut schaffen.
Und dann wurde von der Sonntagschule aus auch sehr betont und gebeten
die Leute möchten Hochdeutsch sprechen.
Therefore, High German seems to have been perceived by the Mennonites to act as a
protective barrier from the outside world, and its loss among the younger generation, and
consequently contact with English speakers was felt by some first set participants to be a
significant threat to Mennonites as a group. For example, when asked whether the
Mennonite youth in the pre-war period in Canada kept among themselves or spent time
with their English-speaking peers, N. Driedger replied: “Die hielten sehr zusammen.
Einmal hat die Sprache uns zusammen gehalten.” A similar opinion is provided by one of
the second set participants:
“Das ist was hält zusammen, Mennoniten sind Deutsch. Und es ist egal wo du
lebt, die Menschen hatten in Russland jahrelang gelebt, sie haben Deutsch
gesprochen, wir haben in Polen gelebt und haben Deutsch gesprochen, warum
können wir nicht in Kanada, wo die Freiheit da ist?"
Nevertheless, despite the extremely important role attributed to the High German
language and the conscious attempts made by Mennonite parents to give their children a
good knowledge of it, the next generation of Canadian-born Mennonites, who had gone
through the Canadian school system, was already more proficient in English than in High
German and wanted to see more of the former in their church services. However, such
requests were usually answered quite negatively by the older generation, for whom using
any language other than High German in a church service was a sacrilege.
218
6.3.2 Language Use among the Third Wavers
Around the time when the issue of English in Mennonite churches in Ontario started
to become quite sensitive, the third wave of Mennonite immigrants began to arrive in
Canada. Like the second wave immigrants, many newcomers first spent some time in
the prairie provinces and often in British Columbia before settling in Ontario.
However, unlike the first set participants, only a few of whom spent more than a few
months in Germany, all third wavers became German citizens during the war and
spent between three and six years in Germany. Thus, fourteen of the twenty-four
second set participants came to Canada directly from Germany between 1947 and
1950. The other ten, as already mentioned in section 6.2, left Germany for Paraguay
between 1947 and 1948 and immigrated to Canada from South America in the late
1950s (seven participants) and 1960s (three interviewees).
Being exposed to the High German spoken in Germany (which, as will be
shown below, Mennonites perceived to be a „better‟ German) and having no
knowledge of English, the third-wavers coming directly from Germany were
considered to be „very German‟ by the Mennonites already living in Canada. This is
evident, for example, from an observation by Nikolai Driedger (born in 1893), who
mentioned in relation to the Mennonites keeping up High German in Canada: “wir
haben hier noch zu viel Alte und zu viel diese Neueingewanderten, die noch viel
deutscher sind als wir.” The remaining second set participants coming from
Paraguay were almost exclusively native Plautdietsch speakers (nine out of ten
interviewees), who usually finished their education entirely in High German in
219
Mennonite schools in South America, were used to High German as the only
language of the church, and associated great prestige with it.
The linguistic situation of the third-wavers upon their arrival in Canada
usually strongly resembled that of the second wave immigrants: Russian was not
used at all, the children attended tEnglish schools but usually spoke High German
with their parents and attended German Saturday schools, as well as German church
services. However, the pressure exercised by the church authorities to encourage
Mennonites to switch to High German as the family language had some effect on the
second wavers, and many families have raised their children in it. Thus, some of the
Plautdietsch-speaking second set participants mentioned that upon arrival in Canada,
they often spoke High German with Mennonites of the second wave because the
latter wanted to speak only High German with the children.
Interestingly, the same process took place in the families of almost all
Plautdietsch-speaking third-wavers considered in the sample. Thus, while one participant
never spoke German in his family since he was married to a native English-speaker, only
one couple reported that they spoke more Plautdietsch than High German with their
children. All the other participants who had children spoke High German with them even
if both parents were more comfortable in Plautdietsch. However, it would be wrong to
assume that this switch to High German took place only because for some Mennonites it
was inseparable from the Mennonite beliefs, although such opinions still existed among
the Mennonites: “Wenn wir nicht mehr Deutsch sprechen, sind wir nicht mehr
Mennoniten, wurde gesagt. Ist Quatsch natürlich.” (P. Pauls). While religious factors
definitely played a role and may have given the Mennonites the initial stimulus to keep
220
up High German, the reasons reported by the interviewees were much more utilitarian.
Thus, High German was mainly considered to be a more useful and prestigious language
than Plautdietsch. In fact, Plautdietsch was usually not even considered a language by
many participants, for example: “die Leute haben es [Hochdeutsch] angesehen, das ist
die Sprache. Plattdeutsch ist nur ein Dialekt, ist keine schriftliche Sprache” (P. Pauls),
“Plattdeutsch ist keine Sprache, es ist ein Dialekt. Man kann hier damit nix anfangen,
wenn du [Hoch]Deutsch sprichst, das ist jetzt eine Sprache” (L. Winter), “Plattdeutsch
ist ja eigentlich keine Sprache, damit fängt man nicht viel an. Hochdeutsch ist doch
besser. Wenn wir lieber Hochdeutsch gesprochen hätten mit den Kindern!” (A. Niebuhr),
“Das hilft denen [den Kindern] weiter in den Schulen”.
However, despite such high status and the parents‟ attempts to maintain High
German, all second set participants reported that English was the primary language in
their children‟s families (regardless of whether both spouses were Mennonite or not) and
the only language of the grandchildren, some of whom take German language courses in
high schools or universities to the great pleasure of their grandparents. Therefore, all
interviewees from the second set who have grandchildren communicate with them in
English only.
Nevertheless, eight of the twenty-four third wave immigrants considered in this
study spoke only High German with their spouse, two used English, and the rest
Plautdietsch. Interestingly, since almost all participants have relatives residing in
Germany,26 all of the interviewees reported using only High German when speaking with
them on the telephone, even if they spoke only Plautdietsch to each other before they
26
These are the Mennonites who were exiled or evacuated by the Communist government before World
War II or who were deported to the USSR from Germany after the war. The majority of these Mennonites
were able to immigrate to Germany in the 1970s and later.
221
were separated. Lastly, it must be mentioned that the Plautdietsch speakers in the second
set mentioned that they always switch to High German if they are in company of a
Mennonite who is not very proficient in Plautdietsch. Interestingly, absolutely no
negative feelings were expressed about it, which may be caused by the greater prestige
associated with High German, as well as by the fact that all Mennonites, despite of their
first language, consider High German to be their „Muttersprache‟ (mother tongue), as
was frequently mentioned in the second set of the interviews.
6.3.3 The Shift to English as the Church Language
While English decisively gained the upper hand over High German in the Mennonite
churches in Ontario only in the 1970s and 1980s, the language question was already a
serious issue in the 1950s: “in den fünfziger Jahren war in der Mennonitenkirche großer
Streit - das war der deutsche Sprachenstreit” (P. Pauls). The information contained in the
analyzed data allowed me to divide the process of the shift into three phases.
The first phase took place in the 1950s, when most Mennonite churches had a large
number of young people who were more comfortable in English than High German, and
wanted to introduce the former church services. As previously mentioned, the older
generation, reinforced by the recent and ongoing arrival of Mennonites with a good
knowledge of High German, was very slow and quite unwilling to accept such requests.
Nevertheless, some compromises had to be made in order to keep the youth in the church.
Initially, such concessions usually consisted of minor adjustments only, as is evident, for
example, from the following description of this process in the Vineland Mennonite
congregation:
222
“Das Problem fing erst in den fünfziger Jahren an. Im Jahre
neunzehnsiebenundfünfzig haben wir zum ersten Mal eine englische Einleitung
gehabt in dem Gottesdienst. Etwas vorher haben wir gesprochen und in
unserem Gemeine-file liegen Protokolle vor, wie sie das gemacht haben. Denn
damals beschloss die Gemeinde im Jahre siebenundfünfzig, es ist der
Gemeindeleitung überlassen je nach Bedarf eine kurze englische Einleitung zu
haben. Dann fingte es an sehr wenig, nur ab und zu mal. Dann sagten wir bald
wenn das Bedürfnis da ist, dann ist einmal ab und zu nicht genug, wenn wir
brauchen, dann brauchen wir das jeden Sonntag. Und dann ich weiß nicht wie
lange das gedauert hat”. (N. Franzen born in 1907).
The second stage usually took place in one of the following two ways, or sometimes
both, one after the other. Thus, in some churches an English sermon was added to the
service alongside the High German one, and hymns were sung in both languages.
This situation was mentioned, for example, in the Leamington Mennonite church by
a first set participant, Nikolai Driedger. Reportedly, this was the case there at the
time of the interview, i.e. in 1978. Alternatively (or following the first scenario), the
German and the English services split and were conducted separately at different
times. Often, the Sunday school classes were also divided into a German and an
English one.
Understandably, use of English in the church often frustrated the recent
Mennonite immigrants, who usually did not know much English at the time. For
example, H. Wiens, who came to Canada from Paraguay in 1958, mentioned his
experience in the Mennonite church in Niagara-on-the-Lake:
“Obwohl die beides hatten, Englisch und auch Deutsch, aber die schon in
meinem Alter waren, ein bisschen älter, so wie die rausgingen aus der Kirche,
untereinander reden – das ging nur alles in Englisch. Und dann bin ich einen
Sonntagmorgen, wie wir aus der Kirche rausgingen, und alles rum mir spricht
223
alles Englisch, dreh‟ ich mich um und so richtig laut hab‟ ich gesagt: „Und ihr
wollt Deutsche sein?!‟ ”.
As one would expect, the number of High German-speaking preachers and Sunday
school teachers steadily decreased, as did the number of children willing to attend
German services and Sunday schools. A good account of such a situation in
Kitchener-Waterloo was provided by the same H. Wiens:
“Jeden Sonntag war eine deutsche Andacht und [eine] englische. Weil wir nicht
gut Englisch damals konnten, ich ging zu deutschen Andacht. Sogar die
Sonntagschulen, die waren in Deutsch, aber das war das Problem mit die
Sonntagschullehrer. Wenn das jüngere waren, sie waren schon nicht so
fließend, weil die haben ihre Schulbildung alle in Englisch schon gehabt,
nicht? So, wenn die Sonntagschullehrer sollten die Kinder unterrichten, sie
waren nicht fließend genug in der deutschen Sprache nicht mehr”.
As the children were growing up, most parents usually started to attend the English
services for the benefit of the younger generation. This was the case among almost
all second set participants, e.g.: “Wir wollten haben, dass die Kinder zur Kirche
gehen, aber die verstehen nichts!” (P. Pauls), “Wir hatten keine Auswahl - das
musste rübergehen in Englisch, wegen den Kindern und Großkindern” (J. Gossen).
At the same time, adherents of High German in the church were having increasing
difficulties finding German-speaking preachers, and services were attended
predominantly by the older members of the church. Naturally, attendance at German
services also was decreasing with time.
The final stage of the switch is the gradual discontinuation of German
services, which today has been completed in most but definitely not all Mennonite
churches in Ontario. The attendees of German services today are almost exclusively
first generation Mennonite immigrants. Interestingly, many of the second set
224
participants reported not attending the German services any more. It is interesting
that the attitude of the speakers toward the switch to English today is mostly very
positive, although several participants mentioned their regrets about it, e.g. “Der
liebe Gott hat uns als Deutsche gemacht” (P. Kehler), “Zu mir eine englische
Andacht ist nicht wie eine deutsche Andacht” (P. Bergen), “Für die Alten sollen sie
noch das Deutsche behalten” (F. Koop), “Ich würde noch gerne Deutsch, das
verstehe ich besser, ich verstehe Englisch auch, aber im Deutschen ist es einem
irgendwie mehr heimisch” (A. Niebuhr), or “Uns war das Deutsche immer näher als
das Englische und das ist auch jetzt so” (E. Toews).
The rest of the second set interviewees showed much understanding for the
necessity of the switch and usually considered it as a positive event in the life of their
churches, even though some of them would prefer to have church services in
German, e.g.: “wir sind sehr für die deutsche Sprache, aber unsere Kinder sind
schon alle Englisch. … Wir müssen so mit dem Strom mit, nicht?” (H. Lehn), “für
uns ist es lieber Deutsch. Aber wir müssen auch denken an die nächste Generation.
So, wir sind in Kanada und die Sprache ist Englisch. Und so können wir nicht
verlangen, dass es alles Deutsch bleibt” (M. Duerksen) or “Wir wohnen jetzt im
Lande, wo die Sprache Englisch ist. Es ist sehr gut, wenn die Kinder und Enkel noch
Deutsch können, das ist sehr gut. Aber die Landessprache und überall, wenn du
einen Beruf oder was hast, die Sprache ist Englisch”(H. Wiens).
Similarly, most speakers were very aware that the German language (both
High German and Plautdietsch) is being lost by the Mennonites and soon will not be
spoken by them at all. Interestingly, not much regret was shown about it, e.g.: “Das
225
Deutsche werden wir nicht retten. Wir sprechen noch Deutsch aber unsere Kinder
sprechen schon nicht mehr Deutsch” or “So, die Zukunft ist, das Deutsche wird
wegfallen, ältere Leute, also eine Generation, wenn die abgestorben ist, dann ist das
Deutsche weg, unbedingt” (H. Wiens). Possibly, this attitude, which probably would
be unimaginable among the second wave immigrants, could be caused by the fact
that English has now replaced High German as the language of the Mennonite
church, yet has not eliminated Mennonites as a group or as Christians. Therefore, it is
no longer perceived as a threat and fewer negative feelings are associated with it
today than there were several decades ago.
6.4
Summary and Conclusions
This chapter has shown that the patterns of language use by both groups in Russia were
very similar, despite a clear tendency for High German to replace Plautdietsch as the
communal language in a number of families. This tendency had already begun in Russia,
probably around the turn of the nineteenth century, and was already clearly noticeable in
the 1920s and 1930s. Therefore, while the linguistic arrangement of the majority of both
groups in Russia can be characterized as stable bilingualism with diglossia, both were
shown to be „leaking‟ in the twentieth century because of the increasing numbers of
High-German speaking Mennonites, for whom there was no need to switch to
Plautdietsch or to acquire it in order to carry on their daily chores.
Further, it has been established that although the Mennonites‟ attitude towards
their country of birth has significantly changed since pre-revolutionary times, the attitude
of most speakers towards Russian as a language nevertheless remained quite positive and
226
most participants showed or claimed to a have good command of it. At the same time,
because third-wave Mennonite immigrants no longer had any patriotic feelings towards
their fatherland, Russian was clearly considered to be an outsiders‟ language by most of
them. Interestingly, Ukrainian enjoyed a rather low status among the Mennonites, who
viewed it as a dialect or an incorrect form of Russian, which, of course, linguistically is
not true.
Also, it was found that after coming to Canada the second wave of Mennonite
immigrants realized that while their children would have to acquire English, it would be
impossible for them to maintain Plautdietsch as the informal language and at the same
time raise children proficient in High German, which was still seen as the sacral
language. Recognizing this threat, a conscious attempt to replace Plautdietsch with High
German as the communal language was made by the Mennonites, and most Plautdietschspeaking families indeed raised their children in the High German language. The same
pattern was also seen to have taken place in the families of the third-wave immigrants.
Finally, it has been shown that despite attempts to maintain High German even at the
expense of Plautdietsch, High German has been entirely lost by the Mennonites within
“the three generational time frame typical to the general immigrant population” (Born,
2003, p. 158). The interviewees in the second interview set were very aware of this, and
usually did not show much regret about it, as today most of them associate themselves
with Canada and no longer consider English as a threat to the Mennonites as a group.
227
7. STRUCTURAL ANALYSIS
This chapter presents the results of the comparative structural analysis of the two
interview sets and examines the non-standard linguistic constructions typical of the High
German spoken by the second- and the third-wave Mennonite immigrants in Ontario.
Besides presenting the similarities between the High German of the two groups, and
providing an attempt to explain their existence in the variety spoken by the Mennonites,
this chapter also examines the variation in the frequency of the deviations within and
across the two groups and consists of three parts. The first part discusses the non-standard
constructions shared by the participants of both interview sets and presents a detailed
description of those constructions which have not been already discussed in the pilot
study. The second section looks at variation in the usage of such constructions between
the speakers and examines whether their frequency is connected to the speakers‟ sociodemographic characteristics, such as education, first language, attitude toward language
in the church etc. The third part tries to explain the existence of the deviations (whether
they have been caused by external or internal factors) and to determine when these
deviations appeared in Russian Mennonite High German. The chapter closes with a
conclusion section presenting the summary of the results.
Although the analysis presented below was conducted in the spirit of Construction
Grammar and relied on my understanding of it, I was not able to theorize the full
potential of this theory and relied mainly on the central terminology of this theoretical
framework, which is significantly further in the way it could describe the data than my
application of it in this chapter shows.
228
7.1
Non-standard Constructions in Russian Mennonite High German
This section presents non-standard grammatical constructions found in the speech of the
interviewees. At this point, it must be stressed that the non-standard constructions
presented in this chapter are by no means the only forms found in the interviewees‟
speech. For absolutely all speakers, these constructions co-exist with their standard
equivalents and often they seem to be in free variation. It also must be pointed out that
although for the ease of presentation the deviations have been grouped into several
sections (case-marked constructions, constructions with verbs and special constructions,
lexical constructions), none of these deviate constructions should be considered in
isolation from the other ones, as they always appear hand-in-hand and hardly ever occur
in isolation.
Further, while the examples presented in this section are taken from all interviews
in the sample regardless of whether they have been transcribed or not,27 the numeric
evidence has been calculated for the transcribed interviews only (a total of ten selected
interviews, five from each set). Finally, while it was possible to make a detailed analysis
of deviate forms found in the interviews, the tremendous amount of data and its
conversational character (as opposed to a concise questionnaire form, for example) made
it impossible to compare the non-standard constructions to the standard ones numerically.
Nevertheless, despite the great amount of variation found between individual speakers, it
27
This was possible because during the content analysis stage, when each interview was listened to and
paused to record the information about the socio-linguistic categories, information pertaining to the
linguistic characteristics of the participants‟ language (i.e. examples of the deviate constructions produced
by the speakers) was also entered into the corresponding section of the analysis table.
229
was felt that all types of deviate constructions were less numerous than their standard
counterparts for all interviewees.
7.1.1 Case-marked Constructions
Deviations in case assignment present the largest and the most abundant type of deviation
found in the interviews of all participants in both sets and are one of the most salient
characteristics of the High German spoken by the group. Thus, there was not a single
participant in the entire sample who did not produce at least some of the deviate
constructions presented in this section. This is hardly surprising considering that variation
in case assignment and reduction in case markings are very typical of numerous other
German language varieties around the world and in North America (e.g. Born, 2003;
Costello, 1986; Enninger, 1986; Fuller & Gilbert, 2003; Louden, 1994; Nicolini, 2004;
Rosenberg, 1994; Salmons, 1994).
While standard case markings for dative and accusative, and to a much lesser
degree for genitive, were exhibited by all speakers, case-assignment often departed from
the rules of SHG. A numerical summary of the deviations in this category found in the
transcribed interviews is presented in the following table:
Speaker:
Year of birth:
Dative
deviations:
Accusative
deviations:
Genitive
deviations:
Set 1
C.
A.
M.
Martens
Klassen Toews
1892
1893
1897
W.
Andres
1902
N.
Franzen
1907
Set 2
M.
Esau
1922
M.
H.
G.
Duerksen Braun Enns
1926
1928
1928
A.
Niebuhr
1933
12
4
10
63
4
25
19
8
73
8
-
1
3
15
5
13
10
6
19
8
-
-
-
1
1
-
-
-
3
-
Table 7-1
As the table suggests, the most frequent type of deviation was lack of dative case
markings, followed by deviations in accusative, and finally, in the genitive case. The low
230
number of the last should not be considered an indication that genitive was usually
formed by the interviewees in compliance with SHG rules. Instead, the low frequency of
deviations may be attributed to the fact that genitive was used very infrequently by the
participants and was usually avoided and replaced with alternative constructions featuring
other grammatical cases.
7.1.1.1 Constructions Marked for Accusative and Dative in SHG.
Constructions requiring accusative marking, on the other hand, usually showed SHG
accusative morphology but were replaced occasionally with nominative and sometimes
with dative forms. The breakdown of accusative deviations is shown in the following
table:
Speaker:
Set 1
C.
A.
M.
Martens Klassen Toews
Accusative
deviations (total):
Nominative for accusative:
Ein-words (48)
Def. article (1)
Other (1)
Dative for accusative:
Personal /
demonstrative
pronoun (18)
Def. article (12)
-
1
3
1
-
3
-
-
-
-
W.
Andres
N.
Franzen
15
5
1
Set 2
M.
Esau
13
M.
H.
G.
Duerksen Braun Enns
10
6
19
A.
Niebuhr
8
2
1
6
-
6
-
4
-
18
-
7
-
1 (junger
Mensch)
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
10
2
3
1
-
1
1
-
3
-
4
3
2
-
-
Table 7-2
As the table suggests, nominative was more likely than dative to replace accusativemarked forms, and the words following the declension pattern on the indefinite article
were more likely than other parts of speech to appear without accusative-case marking.
Further, it is interesting that accusative was always replaced by nominative if a nonstandard construction featured an indefinite article, a possessive pronoun, or the negation
231
word „kein‟ (grouped under „Ein-words‟ in Example 7-1) but almost never by dative,28
for example:
D.Thiessen (born in 1894):
ich ging in ein Wald … .
J. Epp (born in 1888):
er wollte sein Bruder besuchen.
K. Kehler (born in 1932):
nur ein Onkel hat sie da!
A. Loewen (born in 1929):
er hatte von sein Halbbruder ein Brief gekriegt.
Example 7-1
At the same time, if a construction was lacking SHG accusative marking and featured a
personal or demonstrative pronoun, or a definite article, it was almost always replaced by
a dative case-form, such as in the following example:
H. Braun:
W. Andres:
aber zuletzt holten wir noch dem Wagen.
irgendwas wurde gegen ihnen ausgefunden.
Example 7-2
Although replacing accusative with dative forms was not as common as using nominative
for accusative and was not found in the speech of all speakers, those participants who
used dative instead of accusative usually showed a number of such constructions during
the interview, e.g. William Andres (as shown in Table 7-2) or H. Lehn from the second
interview set (born in 1926):
Ich bin dort in der Schule gegangen
Einer überredete dem anderen da zu bleiben.
Wir sind hier in der Schule gegangen.
Example 7-3
28
However, one exception to this was found among the untranscribed interviews: P. Bergen (born in 1924):
Da bin ich mal in einem Laden gegangen.
232
As is evident from the last example, numerous instances of dative for accusative forms
seem to be connected with the notion of motion (and consequently, with such verbs as
„gehen‟, „fahren‟, „laufen‟), which in SHG requires the accusative case only:
W. Winter (1934):
W. Andres:
Ich bin in der zweiten Klasse schon gegangen.
eh‟ wir in in der Schlacht dahingingen.
M. Duerksen:
und abends, dann fuhren wir in der Stadt mit dem Schlitten.
M. Esau:
einmal sind wir durch die Fenster durch und im Wald gelaufen.
M. Esau:
dann und dann werden die Russen wieder hier sein und dann
[sind] wir schnell im Wald gelaufen.
N. Diredger:
wenn irgendwer in dem waschroom ging.
Example 7-3
Deviations in the dative case were usually much more frequent and affected most
contexts in which dative is obligatory in SHG: indirect objects (Ich gebe meinem Bruder
das Buch), dative verbs (Ich traue ihm), constructions expressing location (Wir wohnen
in der Stadt) or time (an einem Tag, in drei Jahren), and complements of dative
prepositions (mit, nach, aus, zu, von, bei, seit, etc.). The numeric breakdown of the
deviations in dative is presented in the following table:
Set 1
C.
Speaker:
Martens
Deviations in dative by type:
Indirect objects &
1
dative verbs (33):
Constructions of
4
location/time (43)
After dative
prepositions
4
(singular) (49)
After dative
prepositions
3
(plural) (100)
Set 2
M.
Esau
M.
Duerksen
H.
Braun
G.
Enns
A.
Niebuhr
-
1
2
-
13
-
18
1
5
2
-
12
-
2
10
1
4
3
1
20
3
7
20
2
15
12
7
28
5
A.
Klassen
M.
Toews
W.
Andres
1
1
14
1
-
1
1
N.
Franzen
Table 7-3
233
As the table indicates, deviations in the dative case were not only numerous but were also
very typical for the speech of both groups. Although, as shown in Table 7-3, the total
number of dative deviations exhibited by the second set participants in the transcribed
interviews was somewhat higher (133 vs 92), this could not be confirmed when
considering all interviews in both sets.
In any case, it was typical for the majority of speakers to occasionally assign
nominative or accusative (to a lesser extent) instead of dative case marking in
constructions of time or location (Example 7-5), or to the indirect objects and the objects
of dative verbs (Example 7-5):
H. Reimer (born in 1899):
Der Beamte da, auf die Grenze.
… in die Kriegszeit.
N. Driedger (born in 1893): … als der kam und dann unter die Arbeiter agitierte.
W. Andres (born in 1902):
… und versprochen uns den Himmel auf die Erde.
A. Loewen (born in 1929):
Das muss wohl in die sechziger Jahre gewesen sein.
H. Lehn (born in 1926):
Die Farmer sitzen auf ihr Land.
Example 7-5
G.Toews (born in 1894):
Sie gaben ein keine Antwort .
J. Wichert (born in 1897):
Konnte vielleicht mit der Ration die Kinder helfen.
Henry Reimer (born in 1899):
Wir trauten die nicht mehr richtig.
R. Wuerfell (born in 1898):
Das Brot war so weich, dass es klebte zwischen die
Finger.
H. Franzen (born in 1923):
… schrieb ich meine Tante.
… schließt euch die Gemeinde an.
F. Koop (born in 1923):
Wir haben doch kein Mensch was gemacht.
J. Goerzen (born in 1931):
Ich kann mich gar nicht denken.
Example 7-6
234
However, the vast majority of dative deviations affected plural forms following
prepositions which in SHG always require dative. Almost always, such deviations
featured the definite plural article „die‟, a personal pronoun or a possessive pronoun
and/or a plural form of a noun, which often was lacking the dative plural marker –n:
A. Barg (born in 1895):
die waren so gut zu die Arbeiter.
H. Reimer (born in 1899): Nicht von unsere Leute.
L.Winter (born in 1936):
… nach vierzig Jahre.
E. Toews (born in 1923):
Und dann kamen die auch dazu von den anderen Dörfer.
Example 7-7
It is very interesting that even those speakers who produced few deviations (of all kinds)
and assigned mostly SHG case morphology often did not mark some elements of plural
dative constructions. For example:
P. Pauls (born in 1931):
… haben wir uns gefunden mit andere Mennoniten.
E. Driedger (born in 1926):
alle deutschen Männer, von sechszehn Jahre ab;
… die Leute mit den Wagen und Pferde.
G. Enns (born in 1885):
… eine von meine customers.
A. Barg (born in 1895):
Er traut solche Menschen.
Example 7-8
7.1.1.2 Reduction in Case Marking of Adjectives and Deadjectival Nouns
As the first construction in Example 7-8 indicates, in addition to nouns and determiners,
which were frequently not assigned SHG case marking by the participants, adjectives,
and deadjectival nouns also did not always follow the standard declension pattern (which
is quite extensive in SHG!) and were often used with the simplified ending -e. For
235
example, in SHG, if a noun is modified by an adjective without a definite article or a
word following the same declension pattern (e.g. demonstrative pronouns), the adjective
is required to carry the information about the grammatical case, number, and gender of
the noun, and its endings are, therefore, identical with those of the definite article. For
example:
Mennonite HG
SHG:
Nominative:
Ich ging als Gefangene bei meine Kaserne.
Ich ging als Gefangener bei meiner Kaserne.
Genitive:
Batallion deutsche Kolonisten
Batallion deutscher (der deutschen) Kolonisten
… mit Deutsche in Verbindung sein.
… mit (den) Deutschen in Verbindung sein.
… bloss bei deutsche Zeit
… bei deutscher (der deutschen) Zeit.
… kam mein Bruder aus russische Gefangenschaft
… aus russischer (der russichen) Gefangenschaft
Dative:
Example 7-9
Further, it was also found that often adjectives were assigned the inflectional ending –e
by the majority of the participants, regardless of the type or presence/absence of a
modifying word:
Mennonite HG
SHG:
und der war selber ein Deutsche
Ein Deutscher
Nominative: … die russische passagierwagone
Dative:
… die russischen Passagierwaggons
… die arme menschen, die haben dann gebettelt
… die armen Menschen …
der war aber in der französische Zone
… in der französischen Zone
… wenn wir gehen zur deutsche Andacht
… wenn wir gehen zur deutschen Andacht
… mit der deutsche armee
… mit der deutschen Armee
Example 7-10
The frequency count of deviations in adjective endings in the transcribed interviews is
presented in the following table:
236
Speaker:
Year of birth:
Deviations in
adjective endings:
Set 1
C.
A.
M.
Martens
Klassen Toews
1892
1893
1897
1
3
W.
Andres
1902
10
N.
Franzen
1907
14
1
Set 2
M.
Esau
1922
4
M.
H.
G.
Duerksen Braun Enns
1926
1928
1928
2
4
A.
Niebuhr
1933
35
1
Table 7-4
Therefore, it can be seen that the system of adjectival declension in Russian Mennonite
High German shows less gender/number/case distinction and moves away from the SHG
toward the common ending -e.
7.1.1.3 The Form „de‟.
A similar tendency (i.e. moving away from greater variety of inflections/carrying more
grammatical information toward a simplified common ending system) has been seen to
take place with the definite article, instead of which sometimes the form „de‟ was used.
„De‟ fulfilled the same function as the definite article and seemed to be an article form
not marked for gender or number:
Participant:
Mennonite HG
SHG
H. Reimer (1899):
vor de Sonnenaufgang
Vor dem Sonnenaufgang
M. Toews (1897):
zu eng mit de Luft war das …
… mit der Luft …
C. Martens (1892):
ja er zog von de Dörfer zurück
… von den Dörfern ...
P. Kehler (1929):
einmal kamen dreiundzwanzig Personen in
… in das (ins) Haus, von diesen
de Haus, von diese Banditen.
Banditen.
behandelt wurde von de Verwandten
… von den Verwandten
H. Franzen (1923):
Example 7-11
The form „de‟ was also found frequently to modify English or Russian borrowings, which
allowed the speakers to avoid assigning a grammatical gender to the borrowed nouns,
e.g.:
237
C. Martens:
P. Kehler:
aber in de factory@e, wo ich ich in de schoe_shop@e geschafft
hatte… .
nach de баня [sauna]… .
im Uhrwald mit de Munchetta … .
N. Driedger: wir waren am tag bloss in de office und von de office gab man uns
identification card.
Example 7-12
This form most likely has its origin in the Plautdietsch language, where it is the definite
article for masculine nominative and feminine, as well as plural in the nominative and the
object case (similar to the High German „die‟). It is interesting, however, that in Example
7-11, „de‟ modified a neuter noun, the article for which in Plautdietsch is „daut‟. The
assumption of the Plautdietsch origin of „de‟ is supported by the fact that the form rarely
occurred in the speech of those participants who spoke High German as the first
language, and even when it did, it could possibly be attributed to the elision of the final
consonant in the feminine dative article „der‟ typical for spoken High German:
E. Driedger:
ich bin von de Molotschna.
A. Loewen:
ich de Schule, in de Schule wurde das gemacht.
Example 7-13
On the other hand, unlike the oblique form of the definite article, „de‟ was very frequently
used by almost all participants in the sample in combination with the preposition „an‟ in
constructions of time featuring a specific year. Examples of such constructions have been
presented in the pilot study (section 5.2.7) and are discussed further in the next section.
238
7.1.1.4 Constructions of Time Indicating a Year
It is noteworthy that almost all participants in both interview sets often used a
construction [AN + DE] when talking about a specific year. This construction looks
somewhat similar to the SHG adverb „anno‟, which derives from the Latin „Anno
Domini‟ (A.D.) and means „ in the year of the Lord‟. „Anno‟ is marked as „veraltet‟
(archaic) by Duden (“anno”, Duden - Das Große Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache,
2000), and, with the exception of several colloquial humorous constructions, such as
„Anno Tobak‟ or „Anno dazumal‟(both meaning “very long time ago”), is hardly used in
spoken German. However, while in several instances the participants clearly used [ANNO]
as opposed to [ AN + DE], in the overwhelming majority of instances it was clearly the
latter, e.g.:
M. Toews:
A. Klassen:
geboren bin ich an de 1897 im Dorf Osterwick
und dann zusammen wir drei fuhren wir nach Russland im November an de
achtzehn
N. Franzen: und dann wurde er an de siebenundzwanzig als Prediger gewählt
N. Driedger: an de dreiundzwanzig kamen die Altkolonier, an de vierundzwanzig die
Molotschnaer
H. Lehn:
G. Enns:
H. Braun:
an de dreiundvierzig sind wir schon geflüchtet.
das war an de einunddreißig, im herbst einunddreißig .
an de zweiundvierzig , no@e einundvierzig kam der Deutsche rein und
dann war ich zwölf Jahre alt.
Example 7-14
While it is very difficult to determine where this construction comes from, it can be
argued that it could be a result of folk etymology, when the Mennonite speakers
reinterpreted the structure of „anno„ as a phonetic assimilation of „an dem„, and then
transformed the definite article into „de„. In any case, the only thing that can be said with
certainty about [ AN + DE] is that it was used quite frequently by most participants and for
239
many speakers has completely replaced the construction [im Jahr(e) + YEAR]. In fact, the
latter was found only in one of the transcribed interivews. The other participants in the
transcribed interviews usually used the SHG construction [YEAR], which has the same
meaning as [im Jahr(e) + YEAR]. The frequency of these constructions in the transcribed
interviews is presented below:
Speaker:
[AN DE +YEAR]
Other non-standard
constructions
[im Jahr(e) + Year]
anno
Set 1
C.
A.
M.
Martens
Klassen Toews
1
7
W.
Andres
7
N.
Franzen
11
Set 2
M.
Esau
-
M.
H.
G.
Duerksen Braun Enns
1
2
12
-
-
-
-
2
-
-
-
7
-
-
-
-
5
26
-
-
-
-
-
-
Table 7-6
7.1.1.5
A.
Niebuhr
-
Possessive Constructions
In SHG, the role of possession is often expressed through the genitive case (e.g. der Hut
meines Vaters, das Auto der Tante), which competes with several other constructions
(“Genitivattribut”, 2001). Of these, the one of particular interest in this project is the
construction that can be described as „pre-nominal dative + possessive pronoun‟, e.g. :
Das ist der Mutter ihre Schwester.
Example 7-15
As already mentioned in chapter 5, section 5.2.8.4, this construction is considered
incorrect in SHG but is nevertheless quite popular in modern colloquial German and a
number of dialects. In terms of CxG, this construction can be presented as follows:
the possessed
the possessor
[Nominal Expression]DAT
[[POSS]GEN + NUM]X
Figure 7-1
240
NX
As the figure indicates, the construction consists of three parts: 1) a referential nominal
expression stating the possessor in the dative case 2) a possessive pronoun, which is
selected by the preceding nominal expression and which must agree in gender and
number with the following noun; The X-case of the possessive is dictated by the
following noun as well; 3) a noun stating the possessed object in case X required from
outside the construction. Thus, in Example 7-15 the stem of the relative pronoun “ihre” is
determined by the noun “Mutter”, whereas the ending –e (feminine, singular nominative)
is dictated by the noun “Schwester”, which itself is required to be in the nominative case
by the copula verb “sein”.
My data have shown that variations of the construction were quite numerous
among the interviewees in both sets and featured various types of possessors: a noun
(Example 7-17), a proper noun (Example 7-18), and a demonstrative pronoun (Example
7-19):
G. Enns (born in 1885):
unserem Administrator Wiens seine Mutter
W. Winter (born in 1934):
meinem Vater seine Schwestern.
Example 7-17
J. Wichert (born in 1897):
Tante Marie ihr Onkel
G. Enns (born in 1928):
Roosevelt seine Frau...
Example 7-18
G. Reimer (born in 1884):
den ihre Kinder
A. Loewen (born in 1929):
den ihr Deutsch
Example 7-19
241
However, in addition to the above-mentioned constructions, I have encountered
expressions which can be considered as variations of this construction, especially in terms
of the first part not following the obligatory dative case (Example 7-20):
G. Enns (born in 1885):
meine Frau ihr Onkel
E. Driedger (born in 1926):
meine Mutter ihre Tante.
Example 7-20
This construction was also found to be used as an adjunct modifying the „possessed‟
noun, as in the following example:
M. Duerksen: ich hab mir den mein Bruder seinen Anzug angezogen.
Example 7-21
In this case, the construction can be treated as a complex determiner consisting of a
determiner “seinen” and a determiner phrase “mein Bruder.” Further, the „possessed‟
noun part of the construction also frequently failed to take the case required by the
sentence in which it appears. For example:
A. Niebuhr:
die kamen nach meinem Mann sein Bruder.
Example 7-22
A further variation of the construction seems to be its combination with the prenominal
„von + dative‟ expression. Although in Standard German this construction usually
appears in post-nominal position, the dative preposition „von‟ was found to modify the
„possessor‟ nominal expression, which almost always took the dative case and appeared
in the pre-nominal position, such as in the following example:
242
M. Duerksen: ... vom Vater seine Eltern starben an Typhus
M. Esau:
und dann hatte meine, von meinem Mann seine Nichte, hatte es
dann in englisch übersetzt.
Example 7-23
It is noteworthy that the constructions exemplified above almost never co-existed with
regular attached genitives, i.e. those speakers who formed standard possessive
expressions with genitive hardly ever used any type of such periphrastic detached
constructions. A great deal of personal variation must also not be overlooked. Finally,
none of the participants was found to use more than two non-standard variations of the
detached genitive constructions, with the most frequent variation being presence or
absence of the dative case in the „possessor‟ nominal expression and failure to follow the
case required by the sentence in which a specific construction appeared.
7.1.1.6 Case-marked Constructions: Conclusions
The information about case marked constructions in the High German of Russian
Mennonites presented in this section shows that we can hardly speak about case loss or
case coalescence, which has been shown to have taken place in numerous other German
varieties in North America, such as Texas German, sectarian Pennsylvania German, or
Frankenmuth German. Instead, most speakers exhibit predominantly SHG case
morphology with significant variation in case-assignment, which shows several visible
trends.
First of all, the general direction of the case variation is clearly moving in the
direction from more markedness (and consequently, clearer gender/number/case
distinction) toward less markedness. Thus, the speakers considered in this study were
243
more likely to prefer a construction that is not overtly marked for case/number/gender
than the ones with such marking. This is consistent with the results of the study of Texas
German by Salmons (1994), which shows that this pattern of variation in case assignment
fits nicely with the theory of Natural Morphology, which predicts that the change in a
language usually proceeds “toward less markedness/more naturalness” (Wurzel, 1989, p.
13).
Further, besides the direction toward less overt markedness, it was noticed that:
a) dative was more likely than accusative to appear without overt case marking and was
more likely to be replaced with nominative or those accusative forms which are
morphologically identical with nominative; b) accusative was more likely to be replaced
with nominative than dative forms. This sequence is consistent with the Regression
Hypothesis proposed by R. Jakobson (1969) and extended to language loss among
immigrants by de Bot & Weltens (1991). This hypothesis states that the loss of case
distinction occurs in the inverse order of the acquisition sequence exhibited by children
(therefore, genitive should be lost first, followed by dative and then accusative) and has
been successfully applied to the language of Frankenmuth Germans in Michigan by Born
(2003). My finding that the indefinite article and the ein-words were more frequently not
assigned SHG case marking is also consistent with this hypothesis.
Finally, it is very interesting that no significant differences in case assignment
were found between the two sets of participants. Although the interviews were only
conducted twenty-five years apart, the fact that the participants belonged to different
generations and were exposed to very different social and historic conditions both in
Russia and in Canada (as described in the previous chapter) was expected to play a role.
244
Nevertheless, the lack of major differences in case-assignment between the groups
suggests that this variation was rather stable among the first-generation immigrants and
was common to at least several generations of immigrants born in Russia or could simply
result from the fact that both groups spent close to have a century in English-speaking
Canada.
7.1.2
Verb Constructions and Special Constructions
7.1.2.1
[tun + inf]
Although considered incorrect in SHG as “überflüssige Erweiterung des Prädikats”
(superfluous extension of the predicate) (“tun”, 2001), constructions consisting of a
conjugated form of the verb „tun‟ followed by an infinitive of another verb were
produced by the speakers both of the first (Example 7-24) as well as of the second
interview set (Example 7-25) and showed both present, simple past, as well as
subjunctive mood forms:
C. Martens (1892):
Wenn wir jetzt so reisen täten.
W. Andres (1902):
Hatte Korrespondenz mit meinen Freunden da bei Amur,
was da helfen taten.
Aber wann du in Ängsten warten tust… .
In Moskau taten die uns in drei Klassen einteilen.
A. Barg (1895):
er tat mir den Revolver vom Kopf halten;
Verstehen Sie, was ich Ihnen erzählen tue?
… was bei uns passieren tut.
Example 7-24
245
M. Esau (1922):
Ich tu das mit dem Englischen verwechseln schon
M. Duerksen (1926):
Hier in unserer Kirche wir tun Wasser drauf gießen.
H. Braun (1928):
Du tust manchmal auch ein bisschen Platt sprechen.
F. Koop (1929):
Sie haben die Kinder gefragt, tuen eure Eltern noch
beten?
P. Kehler (1929):
Ich tue nur mit den Händen arbeiten.
K. Kehler (1932):
Ich tu lieber sprechen.
A. Niebuhr (1933):
… die tat Brot ausfahren.
W. Winter (1934):
Ich tu viel Information geben.
Example 7-25
Although produced by many participants in both sets, such constructions were found to
be especially numerous in the speech of some first set participants, such as W. Andres (17
instances) or A. Barg (15 instances). Interestingly, both participants came from the
Molotschna colony and had a high level of education as both finished a trade and
commerce school, which was very prestigious among Mennonites.
Interestingly, very similar patterns (however, affecting only the present tense)
were found to be typical in Texas German (e.g. Guion, 1996, p. 459; Nicolini, 2004, p.
147) and are common in the south of the European German-speaking area. The existence
of these constructions in the HG of Mennonites, however, can hardly be traced to
Southern German varieties. Also, it is not very likely to be caused by English, which is
considered as a possibility by some authors (e.g. Nicolini, 2004, p. 147), since „tun‟ is
used as a general agreement auxiliary in my data, whereas the English equivalent „do‟ is
used only in questions (e.g. „Where did you buy that?‟), negations (e.g. „I do not speak
German‟), or emphatic constructions (e.g. „I do like it‟).
246
7.1.2.2 Constructions of Intention and Purpose
An interesting construction featuring the infinitive form of the verb „haben‟ followed by a
subordinate clause introduced by the conjunction „dass‟ or by another main clause was
found among several second set participants. Although a colloquial construction [etwas
nicht haben können] („can‟t stand something‟) exists in SHG, it is always used with a
negative sense. Three second set participants who produced this construction during the
interview, however, used it positively to indicate a desire/intention. Although it is
impossible to determine the origin of this construction at this stage, there is very little
evidence that it comes from contact with English or Russian:
A. Loewen (1929):
Er wollte zuerst gar nicht haben, dass sie mich schreiben soll.
J. Gossen (1931):
Wir wollten haben, sie sollen dies auch lernen.
P. Pauls (1931):
Unsere Eltern wollten haben, dass wir sollten mehr Hochdeutsch verstehen.
Wir wollten haben, dass die Kinder zur Kirche gehen.
Example 7-26
Further, the particle „zu‟ was frequently found to be missing from infinitival
constructions where it is obligatory in SHG:
G. Enns:
… die Personen ohne noch mal taufen aufnahm.
J. Janzen:
… half ich Listen aufstellen.
R. Wuerfell:
Mennoniten brauchten nicht in den Krieg gehen.
A. Rempel:
der war ein Ukrainer geschickt hier arbeiten
P. Kehler:
du brauchst mir nichts geben
A. Loewen:
wir mussten uns verpflichten ein Jahr arbeiten
Example 7-27
247
Finally, the construction [zum + infinitival noun] was found to be very productive in the
speech of many participants, and was often used instead of the SHG [um … zu +
infinitive] construction:
Mennonite HG
SHG
R. Wuerfell:
zum nach Alberta Fahren
um nach Alberta zu fahren
M. Toews:
jemand gab uns ein Stückchen zum Gartenmachen
um Garten zu machen
er müsste das halten zum bisschen was Eintauschen
um etwas einzutauschen
zum die 400 Acker Bearbeiten
um die … zu bearbeiten
J. Driedger:
Example 7-28
7.1.2.3
Präteritum
Two opposing trends were found to affect the simple past tense of the High German
spoken by the Mennonites. On the one hand, some regular („weak‟) verbs, for example
„arbeiten‟, showed lack of the past-tense suffix –t- and thus became morphologically
identical with the present tense, for example:
M. Toews (1897):
aber im Haus wenn ich arbeite, die Frau zupfte mich am Rock.
mein Bruder arbeite, er war Ingenieur … .
und dort arbeite er dort war er noch zwei Jahre.
M. Duerksen (1926): von Beruf waren sie [die Eltern] im колхоз@r , arbeiten sie.
so dann , nachher arbeite ich in Moosejaw, auch in einem Krankenhaus.
Example 7-29
Interestingly, this form was sometimes used interchangeably with the regular past-tense
form „arbeitete‟, and both sometimes occurred in the same utterance:
*MAD:
und als ich im Altenheim arbeitete, dort arbeite ich zwölf
Stunden am Tag.
Example 7-30
248
On the other hand, many participants added the past tense suffix –t- to the irregular
(„strong‟) verbs which form the simple past tense by stem vowel change only (Example
7-31) and used a number of hypercorrected past tense forms of strong verbs which
featured the past-tense suffix -t- in addition to the change in the stem vowel (Example 732).
N. Franzen:
Bei den Nachbarn da war ein junger Mann, der gehte zur
Brüdergemeinde aber die Familie nicht.
W. Andres:
die hatten ja eine Kammer, wir nennten das eine Kammer.
M. Duerksen: dann klingte es drei mal und wurde es ausgemacht.
G. Enns:
es kommte darauf an.
das nennten sie Ording wie nennte man das in Russland
Ording nennten sie das.
Example 7-31
A. Klassen:
Dann saßen wir irgendwo in eine Stadt auf der Station und
warteten bis der Zug kamte.
N. Franzen:
und dann schlieften wir.
Er sprachte so wenig
M. Duerksen: ja dann liessten sie uns auch herein.
G. Enns:
da gingte der могылы@r way@e.
Example 7-32
The most frequent of the latter was the past tense form of the verb „anfangen‟ (to start):
N. Franzen:
dann fingte der Selbstschutz gerade an.
und die Weintraubenernte fingte im Oktober an
und dann fingte in dem Jahr neunundzwanzig Immigration nach Westen an.
dann fingte es an sehr wenig nur ab und zu mal.
Example 7-33
249
7.1.2.4
Multiple Negation
Many participants in both sets frequently employed constructions featuring multiple
negation, which is not found in SHG. Usually, such constructions involved negating both
the noun and the main verb in the same clause, and therefore featured both „kein‟ (or its
pronominal form „keiner‟) and „nicht‟. Such constructions were usually used to give the
negated element(s) a special emphasis and were very typical of the first (Example 7-34)
as well as of the second set participants (Example 7-35).
N. Driedger: die hatten keinen vote nicht.
C. Martens:
von unsere Jungen ging keiner nicht mit.
ich hatte dann kein Geld nicht for a while.
es waren keine Proteste nicht.
wir hatten da keine Zeitung nicht
M. Toews:
… weil meine Eltern keine nicht hatten.
W. Andres:
da war kein Fenster nicht.
sonst durfte keiner nicht Flinten halten.
weil du kein Prediger nicht bist.
hätte keiner nicht gedacht aus Russland rauszugehen.
Example 7-34
H. Rempel:
ich habe keine Chance nicht nach Kanada zu kommen.
A. Rempel:
hier wird keiner nicht mehr fahren.
A. Loewen:
keiner hatte mich nicht aufgehalten.
H. Lehn:
keine plattdeutsche Bücher hatten wir nicht.
H. Franzen:
wir haben kein Radio nicht gehabt.
sie hatten keine Lehrer nicht.
ich kenne kein Namen nicht.
Example 7-35
250
Besides
„kein‟, other
indefinite
(no one),
„nichts‟
(nothing),
W. Andres:
wo bliebt
meinepronouns,
frau? ich such
findeas
sie„niemand‟
niemals nicht
mehr
in diese
grosse Stadt.
orH.„niemals‟
were also
usedniemand
occasionally:
Lehn: (never)
ihre Familie
hatte
nicht.
A. Loewen:
… hat uns niemand nichts gesagt.
G. Enns:
da war niemand nicht zu Hause.
Example 7-36
The existence of the constructions in these examples can most likely be attributed to the
influence of the Russian language, which has very similar constructions consisting of an
indefinite pronoun or an adverb „никто‟ (no one), „ничто‟ (nothing) or „никогда‟ (never)
in combination with the negative particle „не‟ (not):
W. Andres:
Mennonite HG:
Russian:
Sprich niemals nicht das Wort Moskau!
[Say never not the word Moscow]
Никогда не говори слова Москва!
[Never not say word Moscow!]
die Russen werden einem niemals nicht sagen.
[The Russians will to one never not say]
Русские никогда не скажут!
[Russians never not say!]
Example 7-37
Very similar constructions were also found to be characteristic of the language of
Germans in the USSR and were also traced back to the influence of the Russian language
(e.g. Frank, 1992, p. 163). At the same time, while constructions with double negation do
exist in Plautdietsch, the frequency with which they appeared in the interviewees‟ speech
nevertheless is related to the speaker‟s knowledge of Russian, which, of course, does not
necessarily mean causation. Thus, C. Martens and W. Andres from the first set finished a
secondary educational institution (agricultural and commercial college respectively) in
Russia, which was conducted entirely in the Russian language. H. Franzen of the second,
251
who was shown to use double negation frequently, completed grades eight to ten in the
Russian language and still spoke it very well at the time of the interview.
7.1.2.5 Relative Pronouns
Further drifting away from the number/gender/case distinction can be seen in the frequent
substitution of various forms of the SHG relative pronouns with the form „was‟ (what).
Although „was‟ can be an interrogative pronoun in SHG, as a relative pronoun it refers to
inanimate objects and can be used with indefinite antecedents such as „etwas‟
(something), „nichts‟ (nothing) and with demonstratives such „das‟ (this) and „dasselbe‟
(the same). At the same time, „was‟ never occurs with a noun antecedent in SHG. Thus,
phrases such as „Da gibt es nichts, was ich tun könnte‟ (There is nothing that I could do
here) are considered grammatical in SHG, as opposed to constructions like „der
Computer, was ich gekauft habe‟ (the computer that I bought). Interestingly, the
participants in both groups frequently extended the usage of „was‟ to both singular and
plural antecedents (Example 7-37) and even to animate antecedents (Example 7-38).
Mennonite HG:
SHG:
C. Martens:
N. Franzen:
W. Andres:
… die Greueltaten, was da waren.
Ich lies die Blätter, was er geschrieben hat.
Das ein Dorf, was nicht die Gewehre ablegte.
die (plur.)
die (plur.)
das
G. Enns:
E. Driedger:
… die Zeit, was wir aus dem Haus gejagt wurden.
das Getreide, was da war.
in der
das
Example 7-37
252
D. Thiessen:
M. Toews:
A. Rempel:
A. Loewen:
Mennonite HG:
die Prediger, was noch in Russland waren.
die Arbeiter, was für Vater arbeiteten.
auch dieser Bruder, was in Deutschland ist.
da war Prediger, was in Winnipeg ist.
Makhno war dieser gewesen, was schreckliche Räubern
tut.
meine Kusine, was in Deutschland ist.
SHG:
die (plur.)
die (plur.)
der
der
der
die (sing.)
Example 7-38
7.1.2.6 Verb Constructions and Special Constructions: Conclusions
As this section indicates, there are a number of non-standard constructions in the High
German of Russian Mennonites. Some of them are shared by other German varieties,
such as the [tun + INFINITIVE] construction or absence of the simple past tense suffix –tin some verbs, and can be interpreted as a general development from synthetic towards
analytic structures. Other constructions, such as increased use of „was‟ in place of a SHG
relative pronoun marked for case, number, and gender, add to the evidence that the
Mennonites‟ variety of High German is moving towards less overt morphological
markedness. Finally, some constructions, such as double negation, may be attributed
either to convergence with the Russian language, which this variety must have undergone
when the group was still living in Russia, or could be a feature of an older stage of High
German. Hardly any of these developments can be attributed directly to the influence of
the English language and hardly any differences between the two sets have been detected,
which, again, indicates the relative stability of these constructions in Russian Mennonite
High German.
253
7.1.3 Lexical/Semantic Domain
7.1.3.1
Discourse Markers
Borrowing key English discourse markers („well‟, „you know‟, etc) and the parallel loss
of the German modal particles („doch‟, „mal‟, „wohl‟ etc.) have been documented as a
common feature of German varieties in long-term contact with English from Texas to
Australia (e.g. Clyne, 1972; Clyne, 1987; Goss & Salmons, 2000; Salmons, 1990).
Consequently, most speakers, especially those from the second interview set who today
speak High German or Plautdietsch with their spouse but English with children and
grandchildren (and, consequently, have to code-switch often), were expected to have lost
the bulk of native German discourse marking system and to use a number of English
discourse markers. Surprisingly, my analysis revealed that although some English
discourse markers (most of all „well‟) were used by many participants in both interview
sets, all the speakers considered in the sample relied mostly on the SHG system of modal
particles and used the English discourse markers as borrowings. The frequency
breakdown of the German and English modal particles found in the transcribed
interviews is provided in the following table:
Speaker:
Year of birth:
doch
wohl
nämlich
eigentlich
also
mal
well
actually
you know
Set 1
C.
A.
M.
Martens
Klassen Toews
1892
1893
1897
5
6
23
2
4
7
2
4
17
1
7
7
49
1
5
16
5
2
9
-
W.
Andres
1902
17
5
1
3
8
27
-
N.
Franzen
1907
38
4
1
10
63
49
2
-
Table 7-5
254
Set 2
M.
Esau
1922
2
1
1
22
9
6
-
M.
H.
G.
Duerksen Braun Enns
1926
1928
1928
8
5
6
2
1
1
2
16
24
4
21
7
2
11
2
56
3
1
1
-
A.
Niebuhr
1933
14
9
12
43
7
1
-
As the table indicates, although most participants used some English discourse markers,
in the speech of all speakers except H. Braun and C. Martens they were far less numerous
than the native High German ones. Interestingly, German discourse markers similar to the
English „you know‟ or „you see‟ („weißt du‟, „weißte‟, „siehst du‟etc.) were not found in
any of the interviews.
However, despite this lack of English discourse markers, the speakers‟ knowledge of
English has manifested itself in at least two other ways, namely, in the extension of the
meaning of existing words, and in the calquing of English idioms.
7.1.3.2 Semantic Extension of SHG Lexemes
One of the most obvious and probably most frequent examples of extending the meaning
of HG vocabulary under the influence of English is the preposition „nach‟, which in SHG
indicates direction and is used with geographical names (e.g. „nach Kanada‟) or in set
expressions only („nach Hause‟). However, in the speech of most participants „nach‟ was
given the meaning of the English preposition „to‟ and resulted in the speakers producing
constructions which are considered ungrammatical in SHG. For example:
W. Andres:
da ging ich nach die zweite Stelle.
Then I went to the second place.
J. Janzen:
sein Vater kam nach uns.
His father came to us.
A. Niebuhr:
da gingen wir nach meine Mutter ihre Geschwister.
Then we went to my mother‟s siblings.
K. Kehler:
Da kamen wir nach dem Schiff.
Then we came to the ship.
Example 7-39
255
Another preposition meaning has been extended beyond the contexts allowed in SHG is
the preposition „an‟:
F. Koop:
und die hatten ein kleines Haus an de andere Seite.
J. Gossen:
ein russisches Dorf war gleich an der andere Seite vom Fluss.
A. Loewen:
hier Hauptstrasse, waren an beide Seiten Häuser.
K. Kehler:
standen wir an der Straße.
Example 7-1
Example 7-40
However, while the usage of „nach‟ by the Mennonites clearly parallels the meaning of
the English preposition „to‟, the usage of „an‟ in a non-standard way can be traced back to
either English „on‟ or the Russian preposition „на‟, which in both languages can be used
with the nouns for „side‟ (сторона) or „street‟ (улица).
A somewhat similar case of semantic extension is presented by the HG lexeme
„horchen‟ (to eavesdrop), which in SHG implies listening carefully in a secret manner.
The speakers in both samples, however, used this verb with the meaning of the English
„to listen to‟, which in English besides „listening‟ can also have a meaning of „obeying,
listening to orders or guidance‟. This is especially evident from the following examples:
W. Andres:
Aber wir junge Menschen horchten nicht nach den Vätern.
But we, young people, did not listen to the father.
Aber wir gingen und wir horchten gar nicht nach denen.
But we went and did not listen to them.
F. Koop:
Da haben die deutschen da gesessen [in der Kirche] und zugehorcht.
The Germans sat there and listened.
G. Enns:
… haben wir bis nach Mitternacht gesessen, er hat gelesen wir haben ihn
gehorcht.
We sat until midnight, he read and we listened.
Example 7-41
256
Another interesting example in this category is the verb „verspielen‟, which in SHG
means „to gamble away‟ but is also a direct translation of the Russian verb “проиграть”,
which besides gambling away also means „to lose‟. Interestingly, the verb was clearly
used with the meaning of its Russian equivalent in connection with World War I and the
Civil War:
J. Driedger:
… als der Krieg für Russland ungünstig verlief, als Russland
immer mehr verspielte an den Fronten.
Deutschland verspielte hier den Krieg und diese mussten zurück.
G. Thiessen: Also, den Krieg hatte Russland verspielt, gegen Deutschland.
Example 7-42
Furthermore, this verb was found only in the speech of the three above-mentioned
participants from the first set, all of whom knew Russian very well and had much contact
with Russian speakers before immigrating to Canada.
Further, the German verb „meinen‟ which has a meaning similar to that of the
English „to mean‟ but in SHG can only be used with animate subjects in the context of
„expressing someone‟s opinion/thought‟ but not to describe the meaning of something,
appeared in the speech of many participants precisely in this context:
N. Driedger: земский союз, das war so ein Verband aller counties von ganz Russland.
Земский das meint also земская управа, das meint also so wie, na so wir hier die
counties, zum Beispiel.
H. Lehn:
weisst du was das wort MCC meint?
F. Koop:
weißt du was das meint председатель?
L. Winter:
Ich weiß noch einen Weihnachten, das ging immer кукла und кукла und кукла und
кукла. Dann war ich zu Mama: was ist кукла? Ah, das ist ein Name. Da bin ich zu
einem anderen Herrn gegangen: Herr Warkentin, was meint кукла? – Eine Puppe!
Example 7-43
257
The final example in this category are compound nouns calqued from the English
kinship terms with „grand-‟, such as „Großkinder‟ , „Großsohn„, „Großtochter„, which
were used by almost all participants in both interview sets.
7.1.3.3 Calqued Idioms
Further, a considerable number of English idioms were found to be calqued by the
participants in both groups. These include (but are not restricted to) the following
constructions, which were felt to be fairly typical for most speakers: [to be well off]
(Example 7-44), [to take x years] (Example 7-45), and [x years ago] (Example 7-46):
N. Driegder:
M. Toews:
N. Franzen:
F. Koop:
wir waren besser ab.
die sind sehr gut ab.
wir wussten ja, einige Familien waren besser ab.
wir waren sehr gut ab.
Example 7-44
J. Driedger:
H. Wiens:
das nahm mir fünf Jahre bis ich alles das loswurde.
Es hat mich ein bisschen mehr wie ein Jahr genommen
Example 7-45
G. Enns:
F. Koop:
vierzig Jahre zurück.
sechs Jahre zurück.
Example 7-46
It is interesting to point out that the constructions in Example 7-46 could also be
borrowed from Russian, which has a very similar construction, e.g. „сорок лет назад‟
(forty years ago).
258
7.1.3.4 Lexical/Semantic Domain: Conclusions
This section has shown that spending half a century in English-speaking Canada has
resulted in the adoption of numerous constructions formed by calquing English idioms
and individual lexemes, as well as in extending the meaning and grammatical contexts of
some SHG prepositions and verbs. At the same time, it has been shown that the influence
of English on the High German variety spoken by the group was mostly limited to
borrowing English constructions or some of their semantic or syntactic properties. Also,
similar to the other types of constructions, hardly any notable differences between the
two sets were detected.
7.2
Discussion and Explanation
7.2.1 Variation Between the Groups
As previously mentioned, no significant differences in the use of non-standard
constructions between the two groups have been found. This, however, does not mean
that these differences never existed. In fact, most likely, the speech of the third-wave
immigrants at the time of their migration differed from that of the Mennonites already in
Canada but these differences have disappeared in the fifty years since their arrival. For
example, numerous Russian borrowings have been mentioned by Moelleken (1992, p.
80), and several second set participants also pointed out that they used many Russian
words which the other Mennonites did not know. For example, E. Toews from the second
set remembers: “Wie wir hierher kamen, wir sprachen von - wie hieß es? - Чемодан!
Wir alle hatten чемоданs (suitcases). Und пальтоs (rain coats).” Another second set
participant also claimed that they used many Russian borrowings in High German even
259
under the German occupation during World War II and remembered (after the actual
interview) one of his relatives asking a German soldier who did not know any Russian to
bring “eine Banka mit Warenje” (a jar of jam). Therefore, since Mennonites were using
these words in Russia, even when talking to non-Mennonites, it is very likely that they
kept using them for at least some time after they left Russia. However, most of these
borrowings were very short-lived and most likely disappeared soon after their arrival in
Canada, if not before that. In a similar way, since the third-wave Mennonite immigrants
spent several years in Germany, their High German must have been influenced to some
extent by the contemporary European German. Yet my method, i.e. looking for
deviations from SHG in the interviewees‟ speech, did not identify any.
Besides a certain leveling between the HG of the two groups, which to a certain
extent must have taken place in Canada, the following reasons can be given for the lack
of significant linguistic differences between the participants of the two sets. First of all,
all interviewees were first generation immigrants, which means that all of them without
exceptions grew up with the Standard High German Dachsprache), and had at least a
large part of their schooling in High German. Secondly, all participants showed strong
self-identification as Mennonites and had a very strong feeling of belonging together as a
group. These common factors seem to have had a much more profound effect on the
Mennonites as a group, and consequently, on their language, than the different historical
events or social conditions each group faced throughout their history.
260
7.2.2 Variation within the Groups
However, much more interesting is the variation in the frequency of non-standard
constructions shown by the participants in each group. Thus, while the deviations
presented in section 7.1 were fairly typical to all interviewees (i.e. there was not a single
participant who did not exhibit at least several types of non-standard constructions), some
speakers exhibited significantly fewer deviations than others, as shown in the following
table:
Set 1
C.
A.
M.
Speaker:
Martens Klassen Toews
1892
1893
1897
Year of birth:
87
77
Interview length (min.) 105
Non-standard constructions:
17
16
21
types of codes
48
21
108
# of occurrences
Set 2
W.
N.
M.
M.
H.
G.
A.
Andres Franzen
Esau Duerksen Braun Enns Niebuhr
1902
1907
1922
1926
1928
1928
1933
98
117
36
49
33
67
38
23
211
19
84
20
82
26
90
15
50
36
317
Table 7-6
Some of the non-transcribed interviews were also found to contain very few non-standard
constructions, while others showed an abundance of them. But what can account for such
tremendous difference between individual speakers? When trying to answer this question,
I have considered a number of factors, such as age, level of education, first language, the
language spoken in the family, the amount of time spent in Germany, the speakers‟
profession, and their involvement in the church.
First of all, no relation between the speakers‟ age and the number of the
deviations exhibited has been found. Thus, younger speakers in each interview set did
not necessarily produce more or fewer deviations than the older participants. The level of
speakers‟ education or the language of school instruction was not connected with the
number of non-standard constructions in their spoken High German. For example, the
participants in the second set who had graduated from high school did not always show
261
13
36
fewer deviations than those who had only six or seven yours of formal education.
Similarly, some of the first set participants, who besides high school had finished a
secondary educational institution (such as W. Andres, who had completed five years of
an agricultural college after high school), showed more deviations than some participants
with a much lower level of education (e.g. Maria Klassen, born in 1905, who did not
study beyond grade seven).
Surprisingly, the first language of the participants was also not found to be a
predictor of the number of deviations in the speaker‟s High German. Thus, the
participants who grew up speaking both Plautdietsch and High German at home were not
felt to be linguistically different to predominantly Plautdietsch-speaking Mennonites.
Similarly, some of those participants who spoke only High German with their parents in
Russia showed a high number of non-standard constructions. Nevertheless, the first
language might have played a role since three out of four interviewees who spoke only
High German as children, produced somewhat fewer deviations than the other
participants. This, however, contradicts the fact that the interviewees who spoke only
High German in their own families in Canada (usually because one of the partners was
either a non-Mennonite German or did not speak good Plautdietsch) did not necessarily
show fewer non-standard constructions than those who spoke mainly Plautdietsch with
their spouse but High German with their children.
Further, although the three first set participants who spent a number of years in
Germany for various reasons (A. Klassen, G. Reimer, and G. Toews) showed somewhat
fewer deviations than the other speakers in the first sample, the amount of time spent in
Germany did not seem to have influence on the deviations exhibited by the speakers in
262
the second set. Finally, although teachers or church ministers as well as participants
coming from teachers‟ or ministers‟ families also seemed to rely on non-standard
constructions to a lesser degree than the other participants (e.g. J. Wichert & J. Epp from
set one), this was not always the case (for example, J. Thiessen or J. Janzen from set one).
Therefore, it can be concluded that the number of non-standard constructions in
the interviewees‟ High German was most likely not determined by a single factor but by a
combination of them. Thus, a hypothetical Russian Mennonite, who theoretically would
show very few deviations typical of the High German of the other Mennonites, would
most likely have one or all of the following characteristics: he or she would come from a
High German-speaking family in which at least one of the parents was a teacher or a
church minister. He or she would speak only High German as a child, would be a teacher
or a minister himself, and would have spoken only High German in his/her own family.
He or she would have spent a number of years in Germany with limited contact with
other Mennonites. Finally, as my data suggests even partial fulfillment of these
requirements almost certainly required a good command of Russian, and therefore a
Mennonite who showed fewer deviations from SHG would also possess a good
knowledge of the Russian language.
Having described the non-standard constructions typical of the speech of most
Russian Mennonite speakers considered in the two interview sets, and having identified
the sociolinguistic factors which usually co-occurred with the absence of these
deviations, I will attempt to explain the existence of these phenomena.
263
7.2.3 Explaining the Existence of Non-standard Constructions in RMHG
Usually, linguistic changes affecting German language islands outside of Germany are
attributed either to the process of convergence with other languages (i.e. by languageexternal factors) or the tendency of Germanic languages to change in a certain direction
(i.e. by language-internal factors). As will be shown below, in the case of Russian
Mennonites‟ High German both factors are clearly at work.
Thus, as has been shown above, each of the languages with which Mennonites
came in prolonged contact contributed something to their linguistic variety. For example,
calquing English idioms or semantic extension of HG prepositions or other lexemes
according to patterns typical for the English language can hardly be caused by anything
else other than the process of convergence with English. Constructions featuring double
negation and using the verb „verspielen‟ in its Russian meaning are most likely motivated
by the influence of Russian. Finally, some constructions, such as [AN DE + YEAR] or the
usage of „de‟ instead of a definite article can probably be attributed to the influence of
Plautdietsch.
At the same time, language-internal factors, namely, the general tendency of
Germanic languages to develop in a certain direction, for example, from synthetic toward
analytic constructions, could explain some of the other deviations, such as replacing
possessive genitive phrases like „meines Vaters Bruder‟ with constructions featuring
dative and a possessive pronoun („meinem Vater sein Bruder‟) or using the auxiliary verb
„tun‟ in a construction with the infinitive of the main verb (e.g. „Verstehen Sie, was ich
meinen tue?‟ instead of „… was ich meine?‟).
264
However, explaining the main body of deviations in the interviewees‟ speech,
namely the significant variation in case assignment and a reduction in explicit
case/number/gender markedness with either language-internal or language-external
factors, is quite difficult.
On the one hand, it is tempting to attribute these developments to the influence of
another language (convergence hypothesis). But what language, of the ones that the
Mennonites came in contact with, could cause such developments? As has been shown by
a number of authors, although such morphological developments are also typical of
German varieties which were spoken in the USSR by the Volga Germans (e.g. Berend &
Jedig, 1991; Rosenberg, 1994), they cannot be caused by convergence with Russian
because of its elaborate system of six grammatical cases and have been explained by
“internal factors not external linguistic interference” (Keel, 1994, p. 100). Therefore, if
the process of convergence with Russian indeed affected the case system of the
Mennonite High German, it should have become more but certainly not less complex.
Further, if the reduction in case marking is indeed caused by Russian, German
varieties that never came in contact with it, such as Texas German or Pennsylvania
German, should not exhibit similar features, but they do (Fuller & Gilbert, 2003; Gilbert,
1965; Guion, 1996; Huffines, 1994; Louden, 1994).
Another language that has already been shown to affect the Mennonites‟ High
German is English. However, it can also hardly be held responsible for these
developments. Although a number of authors attributed similar changes in other German
varieties in North America to English influence (e.g. Eikel, 1949; Louden, 1994; Nicolini,
2004), the same developments have also been shown to be caused by language-internal
265
factors (e.g. Born, 2003; Fuller, 1996; Keel, 1994). In the case of Russian Mennonite
immigrants in Canada, I would argue that English cannot be held responsible for the
exhibited variation in case assignment and the tendency to move away from overt
case/gender/number marking for the following reasons:
1) The majority of patterns exhibited by the Mennonites do not match patterns of
Canadian English, which should approximate them if the latter has indeed caused
these changes. This is especially evident from the indirect-case pronominal forms,
which are still marked for case in modern English (e.g. „We did not really trust
them anymore‟) but were not always marked for case by the interviewees, e.g.
“Wir trauten die nicht mehr richtig”.
2) Most participants in both interview sets have acquired English as adults, and most
never acquired it fully. Thus, several participants who showed much variation in
case assignment stated during the interview that they never used English in their
families and that they were not very fluent in it.
3) Some of the second set participants who have switched to English as the family
language showed less variation in case assignment than some of those who today
speak mostly High German or Plautdietsch. If deviations in case assignment were
indeed caused by convergence with English, those participants who today speak
mostly English should show significantly more inconsistency in case markings.
Therefore, if the deviations in case-marked constructions in Russian Mennonite High
German are indeed caused by convergence, it is clearly not convergence with Russian or
English. The only other language which most Mennonites know quite well is
Plautdietsch. Attributing the above-mentioned developments to convergence with it is
266
also especially tempting since Plautdietsch, unlike SHG, does not have a strict pattern of
assigning dative or accusative cases. Nevertheless, although this hypothesis does seem
highly plausible, it cannot explain why very similar changes affect the German varieties
of those above-mentioned German varieties, which have never been exposed to
Plautdietsch (or any other Low German variety, for that matter), such as Texas German
or Pennsylvania German.
On the other hand, claiming that these changes are caused by “the general
Germanic drift toward two-case systems” (Born, 2003, p. 151) and result only from
language-internal processes would explain why the other above-mentioned German
varieties show very similar features, but at the same time it would mean completely
ignoring the fact that the majority of Mennonites spoke a language which had very
similar constructions to the deviations found in their High German. Also, if one accepts
the hypothesis of internally-motivated change being responsible for the signs of case
coalescence in their High German, it would be very difficult to explain why Mennonites‟
High German would not converge with Plautdietsch if it did to some extent converge
with English and Russian.
However, what may bring some clarity into this question is the fact that the
variation in case assignment in German language island varieties usually increases after
the removal of SHG as the language of school instruction (e.g. Born, 2003; Salmons,
1994). Although I do not possess the data which would allow me to trace how these case
deviations developed among younger generations of Mennonites who had their education
entirely in English, it is striking that such deviation was already present in the speech of
several generations of Russian Mennonites who grew up and lived most of their lives
267
with the SHG roof. Therefore, if the variation in case assignment in Mennonite High
German was not caused by English but was present in the speech of several generations
of speakers born in Russia, where Plautdietsch was extensively used ever since the first
Mennonites arrived from Prussia, several important conclusions can be drawn. First of
all, this would indicate that the above-mentioned features must have appeared in the
Mennonite High German before their emigration from Russia, and, since the linguistic
situation in Russia was very stable before the late 1930s, such deviation in case
assignment may have been present in their High German for many decades. In this
insatnce, the evidence for converging with Plautdietsch is simply too strong to be
overlooked.
Therefore, it seems very likely that the existence of significant deviations in casemarked constructions in Russian Mennonite High German is the result of both internally
and externally motivated processes of language change. It can be claimed that precisely
because of the tendency of Germanic languages to move towards a two case system, the
High German of Russian Mennonites was extremely likely to converge with Plautdietsch,
which had already completed the case-merger. Furthermore, both convergence with
Plautdietsch and the independent change hypothesis do not contradict each other and can
account for the general direction of case variation mentioned above (namely that the
dative case is more likely to be replaced with nominative and accusative, and that
accusative is more likely to be replaced with nominative than the other way round)
because both processes have been shown to occur in the reverse order of the acquisition
sequence (Born, 2003).
268
Most likely, the beginning of this process can be traced back to the end of the
eighteenth century in Prussia, when High German started to become the language of the
Mennonite church, and can be attributed to the incomplete acquisition of High German
by the primarily Plautdietsch-speaking Mennonites. Convergence with Plautdietsch then
continued in Russia, where the need to use High German in official and religious settings
increased, but an opportunity to learn it beyond the several years of limited education in
the village schools remained a privilege of the wealthier Mennonite elite who could
afford to send their children to Western universities, or to hire well-trained private
teachers. Thus, at least until the second half of the nineteenth century, when the system of
Mennonite education was reorganized and significantly improved, most Mennonites in
Russia did not have an opportunity to acquire High German fully despite being exposed
to it in the churches, schools, official settings, and in a number of other contexts
discussed in the previous chapter. Nevertheless, perceiving High German to be a more
prestigious language, and being forced by the social norms to use it in certain contexts,
Plautdietsch-speaking Mennonites must have heavily relied on Plautdietsch constructions
when speaking High German for a number of decades in Russia. Therefore, it is possible
that by the end of the nineteenth century, when the system of Mennonite education had
significantly improved and most Mennonites had better opportunities to learn SHG,
Plautdietsch constructions were already firmly established in the High German of most
Mennonite speakers.
At this point, it is possible to speak of two High German varieties present among
the Mennonites in Russia. One of them would be the SHG used in Mennonite schools and
churches, as well as spoken by a few Mennonites, such as teachers or church ministers,
269
who would intentionally try to approximate the norms of SHG as closely as possible
because of the high prestige associated with it and because their own social status in the
community required them to speak „better‟ German than the rest of the community. As
mentioned above, such speakers would have had a better opportunity to learn SHG during
their education and would be significantly less likely to use non-standard constructions in
their language than the other Mennonites.
The other High German variety, which can be called Russian Mennonite High
German (RMHG), would be the High German spoken by the majority of the Mennonite
population which contained a number of established non-standard constructions in it. 29
Although Mennonite speakers themselves did not distinguish between the two and
referred to both as „Hochdeutsch‟, many, in fact, almost all of them, nevertheless
characterized the High German variety they spoke as „mennonitisches Hochdeutsch‟ or
„ein sehr plattes Hochdeutsch‟, and contrasted it to the „Reichsdeutsch‟ or „königliches,
literarisches Hochdeutsch‟ spoken in Germany as well as by a few Mennonites. The
assumption that many of the non-standard constructions exemplified in section 7.1 were
quite stable in RMHG at least since the end of the nineteenth century is supported by the
insignificant amount of variation in non-standard constructions found between the
interviewees in the two sets, despite the fact that the participants belonged to different
generations and the interviews being recorded twenty-five years apart. Further, the fact
that almost all speakers in the sample, even those who reported speaking High German in
their families, showed some of these constructions during the interview also suggests that
29
In his 1992 article, Moelleken calls this variety a “standardized form of High German”, “Mennonite
Standard German”, and an “intermediate form of a language” (p. 69). The first two terms seem problematic
to me because we can hardly speak about the process of standardization of this variety, and the third seems
to be somewhat inaccurate because the variety described in this dissertation is clearly High German, albeit
with some non-standard features.
270
these deviations were very widespread among Mennonites. Furthermore, I believe that
while SHG was the prerogative of only a few well educated Mennonites, who certainly
stood out because of their proficiency in it, usage of RMHG was possibly even perceived
to be a part of the Mennonite identity. This assumption is supported by the fact that even
some of the more educated speakers (e.g. N. Driedger or C. Martens from set one) used a
number of non-standard constructions, although they must have learned in school that
many of these constructions are inappropriate in SHG.
7.3.
Limitations of the Study and Suggestions for Further Research
In retrospect, it can be said that besides the already mentioned lack of support for the
main hypothesis of the study, which may be attributed to the methodology used in this
project, avoiding the Observer‟s Paradox was most likely not as successful as it was
thought at the early stage of the project. Thus, it was noticed that after the actual
interview, when the digital recording device was stopped and I engaged in an informal
conversation with the participants (usually over a cup of tea or coffee), I had the
impression that they spoke less formally and usually showed a higher frequency of salient
non-standard constructions than during the actual interview.
In addition, despite my own Russian Mennonite background, which was very
helpful in approaching and recruiting the participants for this study, the fact that as a nonnative speaker of German, I have learned only the standard variety of it most likely
caused the participants to speak more formally and consequently to show fewer nonstandard constructions. For example, one of the participants claimed that he found it
difficult to speak High German with me in the same way as he would speak it with his
Mennonite relatives because “I spoke a different High German than the Mennonites.”
271
Further, the very broad scope of this study did not allow me to concentrate more
specifically on several issues which need to be researched further and given a closer look.
Thus, despite my initial intentions and inclusion of the corresponding tags to code the
syntactic phenomena in the transcribed interviews, such interesting issues as position of
the modal verbs or the placement of the conjugated verbs in main and subordinate clauses
were not analyzed in this study. Similarly, various issues of code-switching as well as the
morphological accommodation of English and Russian borrowings, including patterns of
gender assignment, were not devoted the amount of attention they deserve. Also, while
this study has only considered the first generation immigrants, all of whom grew up with
the SHG Dachspache, investigating the High German of the second generation
Mennonite immigrants who grew up in Canada could provide an excellent source of data
to be compared to the results of this study and could yield new insights into the language
change among Mennonites specifically, as well as into issues of English-German
language contact.
Finally, the theoretical framework of Construction Grammar was not used during
the structural analysis to the extent it was initially intended to be used, and therefore the
major advantages of this approach were not fully implemented. Applying Construction
Grammar to the analysis of the High German spoken by Russian Mennonites seems to be
an interesting and promising project I intend to conduct in the future.
272
7.4.
Conclusions
The main goals of this dissertation were to investigate the High German variety spoken
by the second- and the third-wave Russian Mennonite immigrants in Ontario, to examine
the patterns of language use by each group in Russia and how they have changed in
Canada, and to determine in how far this High German variety corresponds to Standard
High German. The primary hypothesis of the project was that different historical events
as well as different social and political conditions witnessed by members of each group
both in Russia and in Canada have had a considerable influence upon and were/are
reflected in their High German.
The results of the study indicate that generally the patterns of language use by
both groups in Russia were very similar but nevertheless showed two important
differences. First of all, members of the second wave tried to show their patriotic feelings
toward their fatherland in several ways, one of which included instruction in the Russian
language in Mennonite schools. At the same time, although the attitude of the third-wave
immigrants to the Russian language was largely positive, they usually learned Russian
out of necessity and exhibited no patriotic feelings whatsoever. At the same time, despite
the increased necessity to learn and use the Russian language, it was not used by the
Mennonites for communication within the group and was not likely to replace
Plautdietsch as the L or High German as the H-variety. Secondly, High German was
found to be perceived by the Mennonites as a much more prestigious language than
Plautdietsch and was clearly on the rise as the communal language in the twentieth
century, when a number of Mennonite families started using it for informal
communication. This rise of High German as the communal language violated to some
273
extent the stable bilingualism with diglossia which had existed in the Russian Mennonite
colonies since their establishment in the eighteenth and early nineteenth century.
The usage of High German for informal communication was found to have
increased in Canada among both groups as a part of a conscious attempt of the Mennonite
church to save High German as the language of religion. However, despite this, High
German has been entirely lost by each of the groups within a three generation period and
has eventually been replaced as the religious language by English. Interestingly,
independent of their earlier opinion on the matter, most Mennonites today view this
switch as a positive event in the life of the Mennonite church and no longer consider
English to be a threat to the Mennonite religion. Most speakers have also completely
come to terms with the loss of the German varieties by their grandchildren and no longer
consider either knowledge of Plautdietsch or High German as a vital condition for „being
Mennonite‟.
Further, although a significant difference in spoken High German between the
two groups was expected, comparing the non-standard constructions found in the High
German speech of both groups did not yield any significant results. While this lack of
results may have been caused by the methodology of the study and can be considered a
limitation, it is also possible that these differences have disappeared from the language
during the fifty years each group spent in Canada prior to being interviewed.
Finally, it has been determined that the variety of High German spoken by the
Russian Mennonites significantly differs from Standard High German in a number of
respects and that it shows a variety of non-standard constructions. While some of them
can be traced back to the influence of the English language and therefore entered the
274
Mennonite High German after the group immigrated to Canada, the other non-standard
constructions were most likely present in their speech already in Russia. It has been
argued that these constructions were also relatively stable in the group‟s High German,
and possibly were even considered a part of their Russian Mennonite identity. This, for
example, could explain why the first set participants, who could choose the language of
the interview and therefore would not decide to use High German if they were not
proficient enough in it, still showed a large number of deviations in their speech. The
relatively high frequency of the non-standard constructions, as well as the fact that they
were found in the speech of almost all interviewees, allows one to call this High German
variety a „Russian Mennonite High German‟ which is perceived by the speakers to be
„schlechtes‟, „mennonitisches‟ or „plattes Hochdeutsch‟, and to contrast it to Standard
High German, which was taught in Mennonite schools and was spoken by a few
Mennonites with significantly better education and higher social status than most other
members of the community. In fact, one of the participants, who spoke only High
German since birth, claimed that he never learned Standard High German until he came
to Germany but always spoke Mennonite High German.
Finally, it has been shown than RMHG has been subject to both language-internal
as well as language-external processes of language change, and that it is not always
possible to determine where the first end and the second begin. Thus, a significant
deviation in case assignment as well as a certain reduction in the explicit
case/number/gender markedness found in the speech of most participants are the results
both of convergence with Plautdietsch as well as of the independent development of
RMHG towards a two-case system typical of all Germanic languages. In fact, the
275
combination of the two may explain why these developments have been present in
RMHG before SHG was removed as the roof language, which is usually the major trigger
for such changes.
276
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APPENDIX
The Name „Mennonite‟ and Mennonite Names
The radical reformation of the sixteenth century gave rise to numerous Anabaptist groups
in Northern Europe, such as the Melchiorites, the Obbenites, and the Dirkites, to name a
few (Smith, 1981, p. 72). However, only the peaceful branch of the movement became
known as Mennonites, after the name of their most influential leader Menno Simons. It
must be stressed, however, that Menno Simons was not the founder of the new church but
rather a leader who had converted to the new faith when the movement was already well
on its way (Smith, 1981, p. 72).
The fact that the first followers of Menno were called „Mennisten‟ is evident from
a 1544 edict by Duchess Anna of East Frisia, who used this name to distinguish them
from the revolutionary Anabaptist parties (Goerzen, 1972, p. 10). Nevertheless, many
scholars agree that they were not generally known under this name until somewhat later
in West Prussia (e.g. Buchheit, 1978, p. 9; Epp, 1993, p. 65). There, the first Mennonite
refugees were mentioned in the documents of the Danzig city archives as early as 1534,
but were referred to as „Wiedetäufer‟ (Anabaptists) or the „Holländer‟(the Dutch)
(Thiessen, 1963, pp. 18, 19) 30. Yet, as Smith suggests, Mennonites were strongly
opposed to being called „Wiedertäufer‟ („Wederdooper‟ in Dutch) since “the word
implied an earlier baptism” (1981, p. 72), the rejection of which was a tenet of their faith.
In addition, this name was commonly used to designate the so-called „Münsterites‟, a
violent group of Anabaptists who in an attempt to establish the Kingdom of God in the
30
Thiessen further suggests that these first Anabaptists in West Prussia must have been Mennonites since
“verschiedene Namen der ersten Kolonisten nur bei den Mennoniten vorzufinden sind“ (p. 19).
298
North German city of Münster caused much bloodshed and mayhem, giving all
Anabaptist groups a bad name.
About thirty years later, around 1572, a somewhat longer form, „Mennonisten‟,
was found in Prussian documents for the first time (Quiring, 1928, p. 3). This name was
still in use until the second half of the twentieth century, as can be seen from the Russian
census and church records. In all probability, the current version of the name was formed
somewhat later, but most likely before the first Mennonites left Russia for North America
in the 1870s.
In itself, the term Mennonite is a religious epithet that can refer to people of any
racial and cultural background who share the Mennonite faith. Yet since Mennonite
settlements in the Vistula delta and in especially in Southern Russia were self-sufficing
and self-contained (Peters & Thiessen, 1987, p. 15; Smith, 1981, p. 172) and marriages
with non-Mennonites were discouraged, 31 “the religious epithet had almost taken on
ethnic significance” (Goerzen, 1972, p. 21). Therefore, even today it is quite “possible for
one to be a Mennonite but yet not to be a member of the Mennonite church” (Francis,
1948, p. 104).
One of the most pronounced attributes of Russian Mennonite „ethnicity‟ is their
family names, mainly of Flemo-Frisian origin with a few insignificant external additions
(Postma, 1959, p. 106). Despite the long history of netherlandic Mennonites as a
coherent, semi-closed, ethno-religious group, there are not even four hundred typical
Mennonite surnames, with the vast majority of them including only one or two isolated
families (Smith, 1981, p. 172). For example, a study of typical last names among
31
Even in 1963 Thiessen mentioned that “Mischehen mit Nichtmennoniten kommen bis heute selten vor”
(p. 17).
299
Mennonites of West Prussia conducted in 1912 indicated that “West Prussian Mennonites
consisted almost exclusively of the descendants of the first Dutch settlers who came there
in the sixteenth century” (Smith, 1981, p. 172). The following twenty-one surnames were
found to embrace nearly one-half of all the West-Prussian Mennonite population:
1. Penner
8. Janz
15. Fast
2. Wiens
9. Froese
16. Franz
3. Dyck
10. Regehr
17. Friesen
4. Klassen
11. Harder
18. Reimer
5. Wieb
12. Ewert
19. Epp
6. Janzen
13. Pauls
20. Fieguth
7. Enns
14. Neufeld
21. Albrecht
Another interesting study has been conducted by Peters and Thiessen (1987), who
compiled the following list of the twenty most common Russian Mennonite family names
in Canada based on the elephone directories:
1. Friesen
8. Derksen
15. Hiebert
2. Dyck
9. Peters
16. Töws
3. Wiebe
10. Thiessen
17. Sawatzky
4. Klassen
11. Giesbrecht
18. Janzen
5. Penner
12. Löwen
19. Harder
6. Reimer
13. Enns
20. Fehr32
7. Neufeld
14. Hildebrand
Other research on Russian Mennonite names has been conducted, most notably by Horst
Penner (1978), Benjamin Unruh (1955), and Karl Stumpp (1972).
32
Peters & Thiessen, 1987, p.143
300
Today in North America the name Mennonite also applies to the southern branch
of peaceful Anabaptists whose forefathers escaped from southern Germany, Alsace,
Switzerland, and Austria in search of religious freedom. The most well-known of these
groups in Canada and the United States include the Pennsylvania Mennonites, the Amish,
and the Old Order Mennonites. As already mentioned, these groups of South German
ancestry, despite the same name and almost identical faith, do not fall within the scope of
this study.
301